Then they came in, the women. Marcia and the two Julias. Ravishing! Absolutely ravishing, including the mother. The servants set upright chairs for them inside the hollow center of the U formed by the three dining couches and their narrow tables, so that Marcia sat opposite her husband, Julia sat facing Gaius Marius, and Julilla sat facing her two brothers. When she knew her parents weren’t looking at her but the guest was, Julilla stuck out her tongue at her brothers, Marius noted with amusement.
Despite the absence of licker-fish and oysters and the presence of heavily watered wine, it was a delightful dinner served by unobtrusive, contented-looking slaves who never shoved rudely between the women and the tables, nor neglected a duty. The food was plain but excellently cooked, the natural flavors of meats, fruits, and vegetables undisguised by fishy garum essences and bizarre mixtures of exotic spices from the East; it was, in fact, the kind of food the soldier Marius liked best.
Roast birds stuffed with simple blends of bread and onions and green herbs from the garden, the lightest of fresh-baked rolls, two kinds of olives, dumplings made of delicate spelt flour cooked with eggs and cheese, deliciously country-tasting sausages grilled over a brazier and basted with a thin coat of garlic and diluted honey, two excellent salads of lettuces, cucumbers, shallots, and celery (each with a differently flavored oil-and-vinegar dressing), and a wonderful lightly steamed medley of broccoli, baby squash, and cauliflower dashed over with oil and grated chestnut. The olive oil was sweet and of the first pressing, the salt dry, and the pepper—of the best quality—was kept whole until one of the diners signaled the lad who was its custodian to grind up a pinch in his mortar with his pestle, please. The meal finished with little fruit tarts, some sticky squares of sesame seed glued together with wild thyme honey, pastry envelopes filled with raisin mince and soaked in syrup of figs, and two splendid cheeses.
“Arpinum!” exclaimed Marius, holding up a wedge of the second cheese, his face with its preposterous eyebrows suddenly seeming years younger. “I know this cheese well! My father makes it. The milk is from two-year-old ewes, and taken only after they’ve grazed on the river meadow for a week, where the special milkgrass grows.”
“Oh, how nice,” said Marcia, smiling at him without a trace of affectation or selfconsciousness. “I’ve always been fond of this particular cheese, but from now on I shall look out for it especially. The cheese made by Gaius Marius— your father is also a Gaius Marius?—of Arpinum.”
The moment the last course was cleared away the women rose to take their leave, having had no sip of wine, but dined heartily on the food and drunk deeply of the water.
As she got up Julia smiled at him with what seemed genuine liking, Marius noted; she had made polite conversation with him whenever he initiated it, but made no attempt to turn the discourse between him and her father into a three-sided affair. Yet she hadn’t looked bored, but hadfollowed what Caesar and Marius talked about with evident interest and understanding. A truly lovely girl, a peaceful girl who yet did not seem destined to turn into a pudding. Her little sister, Julilla, was a scamp—delightful, yes, but a regular handful too, suspected Marius. Spoiled and willful and fully aware of how to manipulate her family to get her own way. But there was something in her more disquieting; the assessor of young men was also a fairly shrewd assessor of young women. And Julilla caused his hackles to ripple ever so softly and slightly; somewhere in her was a defect, Marius was sure. Not exactly lack of intelligence, though she was less well read than her elder sister and her brothers, and clearly not a whit perturbed by her ignorance. Not exactly vanity, though she obviously knew and treasured her beauty. Then Marius mentally shrugged, dismissed the problem and Julilla; neither was ever going to be his concern.
*
The young men lingered for perhaps ten more minutes, then they too excused themselves and departed. Night had fallen; the water clocks began to drip away the hours of darkness, twice as long as the hours of daylight. This was midwinter, and for once the calendar was in step with the seasons, thanks to the fastidiousness of the Pontifex Maximus, Lucius Caecilius Metellus Dalmaticus, who felt date and season ought to coincide—quite Greek, really. What did it matter, so long as your eyes and temperature-sensing apparatus told you what season it was, and the official calendar displayed in the Forum Romanum told you what month and day it was?
When the servants came to light the lamps, Marius noticed that the oil was of top quality, and the wicks not coarse oakum, but made from properly woven linen.
“I’m a reader,” said Caesar, following Marius’s gaze and interpreting his thoughts with the same uncanny accuracy he had displayed at the outset of that chance meeting of eyes yesterday on the Capitol. “Nor, I’m afraid, do I sleep very well. Years ago now, when the children were first of an age to participate in family councils, we had a special meeting at which we decided each of us should be permitted one affordable luxury. Marcia chose to have a first-class cook, I remember—but since that directly benefited all of us, we voted that she should have a new loom, the latest model from Patavium, and always the kind of yarn she likes, even if it’s expensive. Sextus chose to be able to visit the Fields of Fire behind Puteoli several times a year.’’
A look of anxiety settled momentarily upon Caesar’s face; he sighed deeply. “There are certain hereditary characteristics in the Julius Caesars,” he explained, “the most famous of which—aside from our fairness of coloring—is the myth that every Julia is born gifted with the ability to make her men happy. A present from the founder of our house, the goddess Venus—though I never heard that Venus made too many mortal men happy. Or Vulcan either, for that matter. Or Mars! Still, that’s what the myth says about the Julian women. But there are other, less salubrious gifts visited upon some of us, including the one poor Sextus inherited. I’m sure you’ve heard of the malady he suffers from—the wheezes? When he gets one of his attacks, you can hear him wheezing from anywhere in the house, and in his worst attacks he goes black in the face. We’ve nearly lost him several times.”
So that was what was written upon young Sextus’s brow! He wheezed, poor fellow. It would slow his career down, no doubt.
“Yes,” said Marius, “I do know the malady. My father says it’s always worst when the air is full of chaff at harvest, or pollen in summer, and that those who suffer from it should stay away from the company of animals, especially horses and hounds. While he’s on military service, keep him afoot.”
“He found that out for himself,” said Caesar, sighing again.
“Do finish your story about the family council, Gaius Julius,” said Marius, fascinated; this much democracy they didn’t have in the smallest isonomia in Greece! What an odd lot they were, these Julius Caesars! To an outsider’s cursory gaze—perfectly correct, patrician pillars of the community. But to those on the inside—outrageously unorthodox!
“Well, young Sextus chose to go regularly to the Fields of Fire because the sulphur fumes seem to help him,” saidhis father. “They still do, and he still goes.”
“And your younger son?” asked Marius.
“Gaius said there was only one thing in the whole world he wanted as a privilege, though it couldn’t be called a luxury. He asked to be allowed to choose his own wife.”
Marius’s eyebrows, hairily alive, danced up and down. “Ye gods! And did you grant him the privilege?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But what if he does the usual boy’s trick and falls in love with a tart, or an old trull?”
“Then he marries her, if such is his wish. However, I do not think young Gaius will be so foolish, somehow. His head is very well connected to his shoulders,” said the doting father tranquilly.
“Do you marry in the old patrician way, confarreatio— for life?” pressed Marius, scarcely believing what he heard.
“Oh, yes.”
“Ye gods!”
“My older girl, Julia, is also very level-headed,” Caesar went on. “She elected membership in the library of
Fannius. Now I had intended to ask for the exact same thing, but there didn’t seem to be any sense in two of us belonging, so I gave the membership to her. Our baby, Julilla, alas, is not at all wise, but I suppose butterflies have no need of wisdom. They just”—he shrugged, smiled wryly— “brighten up the world. I would hate to see a world without butterflies, and since we were disgracefully improvident in having four children, it’s nice that our butterfly didn’t come along until last place. And had the grace to be female when she did come along.”
“What did she ask for?” Gaius Marius smiled.
“Oh, about what we expected. Sweetmeats and clothes.”
“And you, deprived of your library membership?”
“I chose the finest lamp oil and the best wicks, and struck a bargain with Julia. If I could borrow the books she borrowed, then she could use my lamps to read by.”
Marius finished his smile at leisure, liking the author of this moral little tale enormously. What a simple, unenvious, happy life he enjoyed! Surrounded by a wife and children he actually strove to please, was interested in as individuals. No doubt he was spot-on in his character analyses of his offspring, and young Gaius wouldn’t pick a wife out of a Suburan gutter.
He cleared his throat. “Gaius Julius, it has been an absolutely delightful evening. But now I think it’s time you told me why I have had to stay a sober man.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll dismiss the servants first,” Caesar said. “The wine is right here where we can reach it ourselves, and now that the moment of truth has arrived, we don’t need to be so abstemious.”
His scrupulousness surprised Marius, used now to the utter indifference with which the Roman upper classes viewed their household slaves. Oh, not in terms of treatment—they were usually good to their people—but they did seem to think that their people were stuffed and inanimate when it came to overhearing what ought to be private. This was a habit Marius had never become reconciled to himself; like Caesar, his own father had firmly believed in dismissing the servants.
“They gossip dreadfully, you know,” said Caesar when they were alone behind a tightly closed door, “and we’ve nosy neighbors on either side. Rome might be a big place, but when it comes to the spread of gossip on the Palatine— why, it’s a village! Marcia tells me there are several among her friends who actually stoop to paying their servants for items of gossip—and give bonuses when the gossip turns out to be accurate! Besides, servants have thoughts and feelings too, so it’s better not to involve them.”
“You, Gaius Julius, ought to have been consul, then turned into our most eminent consular, and been elected censor,” said Marius with sincerity.
“I agree with you, Gaius Marius, I ought indeed! But I haven’t the money to have sought higher office.”
“I have the money. Is that why I’m here? And kept sober?”
Caesar looked shocked. “My dear Gaius Marius, of course not! Why, I’m closer to sixty than I am to fifty! At this late stage, my public career is ossified. No, it is my sons with whom I am concerned, and their sons when the time comes.”
Marius sat up straight and turned on the couch to face his host, who did the same. Since his cup was empty, Marius picked up the jug and poured himself an unwatered draft, sipped it, and looked stunned. “Is this what I’ve been watering down to the merest taste all night?” he demanded.
Caesar smiled. “Dear me, no! That rich I’m not, I assure you. The wine we watered down was an ordinary vintage. This I keep for special occasions.”
“Then I’m flattered.” Marius looked at Caesar from under his brows. “What is it you want of me, Gaius Julius?”
“Help. In return, I will help you,” said Caesar, pouring himself a cup of the superb vintage.
“And how is this mutual help to be accomplished?”
“Simple. By making you a member of the family.”
“What?”
“I am offering you whichever of my two daughters you prefer,” said Caesar patiently.
“A marriage?”
“Certainly a marriage!”
“Ohhhhhh! Now that’s a thought!” Marius saw the possibilities at once. He took a deeper drink of the fragrant Falernian in his cup, and said no more.
“Everyone must take notice of you if your wife is a Julia,” said Caesar. “Luckily you have no sons—or daughters, for that matter. So any wife you might take at this stage of your life must be young, and come from fertile stock. It is quite understandable that you might be seeking a new wife, no one will be surprised. But—if that wife is a Julia, then she is of the highest patrician stock, and your children will have Julian blood in their veins. Indirectly, marriage to a Julia ennobles you, Gaius Marius. Everyone will be forced to regard you quite differently from the way they regard you now. For your name will be enhanced by the vast dignitas—the public worth and standing—of Rome’s most august family. Money we have not. Dignitas we have. The Julius Caesars are directly descended from the goddess Venus through her grandson Iulus, son of her son Aeneas. And some of our splendor will rub off on you.’’
Caesar put his cup down and sighed, but smilingly. “I do assure you, Gaius Marius, it is true! I am not, alas, the oldest son of my generation of the Julian house, but we do have the wax images in our cupboards, we do trace ourselves back for over a thousand years. The other name of the mother of Romulus and Remus, she who is called Rhea Silvia, was—Julia! When she cohabited with Mars and conceived her twin sons, we gave mortal form to Romulus, and so to Rome.” His smile grew; a smile not of self-mockery, but of sheer pleasure in his illustrious forebears. “We were the kings of Alba Longa, the greatest of all Latin cities, for it was our ancestor Iulus who founded it, and when it was sacked by Rome, we were brought to Rome and elevated in Rome’s hierarchy to add weight to Rome’s claim to head the Latin race. And though Alba Longa was never rebuilt, to this day the Priest of the Alban Mount is a Julius.”
He couldn’t help himself; Marius sucked in a deep breath of awe. But said nothing, just listened.
“On a humbler level,” Caesar went on, “I carry no small measure of clout myself, even though I have never had the money to stand for any higher office. My name makes me famous among the electors. I am wooed by social climbers—and the centuries which vote in the consular elections are full of social climbers, as you know—and I am highly respected by the nobility. My personal dignitas is above reproach, as was my father’s before me,” Caesar ended very seriously.
New vistas were opening up before Gaius Marius, who could not take his eyes off Caesar’s handsome face. Oh yes, they were descended from Venus, all right! Every last one of them a beauty. Looks count—and throughout the history of the world, it has always been better to be blond. The children I sired of a Julia might be blond, yet have long, bumpy Roman noses too! They would look as right as they would look unusual. Which is the difference between the blond Julius Caesars from Alba Longa and the blond Pompeys from Picenum. The Julius Caesars look unmistakably Roman. Where the Pompeys look like Celts.
“You want to be consul,” Caesar continued, “so much is clear to everyone. Your activities in Further Spain when you were praetor produced clients. But unfortunately you yourself are rumored to be a client, and that makes your clients the clients of your own patron.”
The guest showed his teeth, which were large and white and strong looking. “It is a slander!” he said angrily. “I am nobody’s client!”
“I believe you, but that is not what is generally believed,” Caesar maintained, “and what is generally believed is far more important than what is actually the truth. Anyone with sense can discount the Herennius family’s claim to hold you as their client—the Herennius clan is infinitely less Latin than the Marius clan of Arpinum. But the Caecilius Metelluses also claim to hold you in their patronage as their client. And the Caecilius Metelluses are believed. Why? For one thing, because your mother Fulcinia’s family is Etruscan, and the Marius clan owns lands in Etruria. Etruria is the traditional fi
ef of the Caecilius Metelluses.”
“No Marius—or Fulcinius, for that matter!—has ever been in clientship to a Caecilius Metellus!” snapped Marius, growing angrier still. “They’re far too wily to say I’m their client in any situation where they might be called upon to prove it!”
“That goes without saying,” said Caesar. “However, they dislike you in a most personal manner, which lends considerable weight to their claim. The fact is remarked upon constantly. Men say it’s too personal a dislike to stem merely from the way you tweaked their noses when you were a tribune of the plebs.”
“Oh, it’s personal!” said Marius, and laughed without humor.
“Tell me.”
“I once threw Dalmaticus’s little brother—the same who is undoubtedly going to be consul next year—into a pigsty at Numantia. Actually three of us did—and none of the three of us has got very far with the Romans who wield the real influence since, that’s certain.”
“Who were the other two?”
“Publius Rutilius Rufus and King Jugurtha of Numidia.”
“Ah! The mystery is solved.” Caesar put his fingertips together and pressed them against his pursed lips. “However, the accusation that you are a dishonorable client is not the worst slur attached to your name, Gaius Marius. There is another, more difficult to deal with.”
“Then before we go into that slur, Gaius Julius, how would you suggest I stop the client rumor?” asked Marius.
“By marrying one of my daughters. If you are accepted as a husband for one of my daughters, it will give the world to understand that I do not find any evidence of truth in the client story. And spread the tale of the Spanish pigsty! If possible, get Publius Rutilius Rufus to confirm it. Everyone will then have a more than adequate explanation for the personal quality of Caecilius Metellus dislike,” said Caesar, smiling. “It must have been funny—a Caecilius Metellus brought down to the level of—why, not even Roman pigs!”