Caesar's Women

  "What do I have to do?"

  “Nothing this evening, except perhaps—do you have access to—no, you wouldn't. I'll frame it differently. Can you manage to get hold of a bust or a statue of Saturninus? Or of your uncle Quintus Labienus?''

  "I can go one better than that," said Labienus promptly. "I know where there's an imago of Saturninus."

  "An imago! But he was never praetor!"

  "True," said Labienus, grinning. "The trouble with being a great nobleman, Caesar, is that you can have no idea how our minds work, we ambitious up-and-coming Picentines, Samnites, New Men from Arpinum and the like. We just can't wait to see our features exquisitely formed and tinted like life in beeswax, with real hair of exactly the right color and style! So as soon as we have the money in our purses we sneak off to one of the craftsmen in the Velabrum, and we commission an imago. I know men who will never even belong to the Senate who have imagines. How else do you think Magius of the Velabrum got so rich?''

  "Well, in this situation I'm very pleased you up-and-coming men of Picenum commission imagines," Caesar said briskly. "Get Saturninus's likeness, and find an actor to wear it to good effect."

  "Uncle Quintus had an imago too, so I'll hire an actor to wear his. I can also get busts of both men."

  "In which case I have nothing further for you until dawn tomorrow, Labienus. Then I promise I'll work you remorselessly until the time comes to depart your tribunate."

  "Is it to be just you and me?"

  "No, there will be four of us," said Caesar, rising to escort Labienus to the front door. “What I plan needs you, me, Metellus Celer and my cousin Lucius Caesar."

  Which didn't help elucidate matters for Titus Labienus, who left the Domus Publica intrigued, baffled, and wondering how his curiosity and excitement were ever going to let him sleep.

  Caesar had abandoned all idea of sleep. He returned to his study so immersed in thought that Eutychus, his steward, had to clear his throat several times in the doorway before his presence was noticed.

  "Ah, excellent!" said the Pontifex Maximus. "I am at home to no one, Eutychus, even my mother. Is that understood?''

  "Edepol!" cried the steward, plump hands going to plumper face. “Domine, Julia is most anxious to speak to you at once."

  "Tell her I know what she wants to speak to me about, and that I will be happy to see her for as long as she likes on the first day of the new tribunate of the plebs. But not a moment before."

  "Caesar, that's five days off! Truly, I don't think the poor little girl can wait five days!"

  “If I say she must wait twenty years, Eutychus, then she must wait twenty years," was Caesar's reply, coldly given. "Five days are not twenty years. All family and domestic matters must wait for five days. Julia has a grandmother, she is not dependent upon me. Is that absolutely clear?"

  "Yes, domine," whispered the steward, carefully shutting the door and creeping away down the passage to where Julia stood, face pale, hands locked in each other. "I'm sorry, Julia, he says he will see no one until the day the new tribunes of the plebs enter office."

  "Eutychus, he didn't!"

  "He did. He refuses to see even the lady Aurelia."

  Who appeared at that moment from the direction of the Atrium Vestae, eyes hard, mouth thin. "Come," she said to Julia, drawing her into the suite belonging to the mother of the Pontifex Maximus.

  "You've heard," said Aurelia, pushing Julia into a chair.

  "I don't know quite what I've heard," said Julia distractedly. "I asked to speak to tata, and he said no!"

  That gave Aurelia pause. "Did he? How odd! It is not like Caesar to refuse to face facts or people."

  "Eutychus says he won't see anyone, even you, until five days from now, avia. He was quite specific, we must all wait until the day the new tribunes of the plebs enter office."

  Frowning, Aurelia began to pace the room; nor did she answer for some time. Eyes misted but tears held back resolutely, Julia watched her grandmother. The trouble is, she thought, that the three of us are so dauntingly different from each other!

  Julia's mother had died when she was barely seven years old, which meant Aurelia had been mother as well as grandmother for most of her formative years. Not very approachable, perpetually busy, strict and unsparing, Aurelia had nonetheless given Julia what all children need most, an unshakable sense of security and belonging. Though she laughed but little, she had an acute wit which could pop out at the most disconcerting moments, and she thought no less of Julia because Julia loved to laugh. Every care had been lavished upon the child's upbringing, from guidance in such matters as tasteful dress to merciless training in good manners. Not to mention the unsentimental and unvarnished way Aurelia had taught Julia to accept her lot—and to accept it gracefully, with pride, without developing a sense of injury or resentment.

  "There is no point in wishing for a different or a better world" was Aurelia's perpetual moral. "For whatever reason, this world is the only one we have, and we must live in it as happily and pleasantly as we can. We cannot fight Fortune or Fate, Julia."

  Caesar was not at all like his mother except in his steel, nor was Julia unaware of the friction which could scratch into being between them on sometimes scant provocation. But for his daughter he was the beginning and the end of that world Aurelia had disciplined her into accepting: not a god, but definitely a hero. To Julia, no one was as perfect as her father, as brilliant, as educated, as witty, as handsome, as ideal, as Roman. Oh, she was well acquainted with his failings (though he never visited them upon her), from that terrifying temper to what she thought of as his besetting sin, which was to play with people the way a cat played with a mouse in every sense—pitiless and cool, a smile of sheer pleasure on his face.

  "There is a compelling reason for Caesar's withdrawal from us," said Aurelia suddenly, ceasing to pace. "It is not that he is afraid to confront us, of that I am now absolutely sure. I can only assume that his motives have nothing to do with us."

  "Nor probably," said Julia, enlightened, "anything to do with what is preying on our minds."

  Aurelia's beautiful smile flashed. "You grow more perceptive every day, Julia. Quite so, quite so."

  "Then, avia, until he has time to see us, I will have to talk to you. Is it true, what I heard in the Porticus Margaritaria?''

  “About your father and Servilia?''

  "Is that it? Oh!"

  "What did you think it was, Julia?"

  "I couldn't catch it all, because as soon as people saw me they stopped talking. What I gathered was that tata is involved in some great scandal with a woman, and that it all came out in the Senate today."

  Aurelia grunted. "It certainly did." And without mincing matters she told Julia of the events in the temple of Concord.

  "My father and Brutus's mother," said Julia slowly. "What a muddle!" She laughed. "But how close he is, avia! All this time, and neither Brutus nor I has ever suspected. What on earth does he see in her?"

  "You've never liked her."

  "No, indeed!"

  "Well, that's understandable. You're so much on Brutus's side you couldn't like her."

  "Do you?"

  "For what she is, I like her very well."

  "Yet tata told me he didn't like her, and he doesn't lie."

  "He definitely does not like her. I have no idea— nor, frankly, do I want to have any idea!—what holds him to her, except that it is very strong."

  "I imagine she's excellent in bed."

  "Julia!"

  "I'm not a child anymore," said Julia with a chuckle. "And I do have ears."

  "For what's bruited about the shops of the Porticus Margaritaria?''

  "No, for what's said in my stepmother's rooms."

  Aurelia stiffened dangerously. "I'll soon put a stop to that!"

  "Don't avia, please!" cried Julia, putting her hand on her grandmother's arm. "You mustn't blame poor Pompeia, and it isn't her, anyway. It's her friends. I know I'm not grown up yet, but I always think of my
self as much older and wiser than Pompeia. She's like a pretty puppy, she sits there wagging her tail and grinning all over her face as the conversation wafts far above her head, so terribly anxious to please and belong. They torment her dreadfully, the Clodias and Fulvia, and she never can see how cruel they are." Julia looked thoughtful. "I love tata to death and I'll hear no word against him, but he's cruel to her too. Oh, I know why! She's far too stupid for him. They ought never to have married, you know."

  "I was responsible for that marriage."

  "And for the best of reasons, I'm sure," said Julia warmly. Then she sighed. "Oh, but I do wish you'd picked someone a great deal cleverer than Pompeia Sulla!"

  "I picked her," said Aurelia grimly, "because she was offered to me as a bride for Caesar, and because I thought the only way I could make sure Caesar didn't marry Servilia was to get in first."

  After comparing notes in later days, a goodly number of the members of the Senate discovered that they had preferred not to linger in the lower Forum to witness the execution of Lentulus Sura and the others.

  One such was the senior consul-elect, Decimus Junius Silanus; another was the tribune of the plebs-elect, Marcus Porcius Cato.

  Silanus reached his house some time ahead of Cato, whose progress was retarded by people wishful of congratulating him for his speech and his stand against Caesar's blandishments.

  The fact that he was obliged to let himself in the front door prepared Silanus for what he found inside: a deserted atrium with nary a servant in sight or sound. Which meant everyone servile already knew what had happened during the debate. But did Servilia? Did Brutus? Face drawn because the pain in his gut was gnawing and griping, Silanus forced his legs to hold him up and went immediately to his wife's sitting room. '

  She was there, poring over some of Brutus's accounts, and looked up with an expression of simple irritation.

  "Yes, yes, what is it?" she growled.

  "Then you don't know," he said.

  "Don't know what?"

  "That your message to Caesar fell into the wrong hands."

  Her eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

  "The precious fellow you so love to have run your errands because he sucks up to you so cleverly isn't clever enough," said Silanus with more iron in his voice than Servilia had ever heard. "He came prancing into Concord and didn't have the sense to wait. So he handed your note to Caesar at the worst possible moment, which was the moment your esteemed half brother Cato had reserved to accuse Caesar of masterminding Catilina's conspiracy. And when in the midst of this drama Cato saw that Caesar was anxious to read the piece of paper he had been handed, Cato demanded that Caesar read it out to the whole House. He assumed it contained evidence of Caesar's treason, you see."

  "And Caesar read it out," said Servilia tonelessly.

  "Come, come, my dear, is that all you know about Caesar after so much intimacy with the man?'' asked Silanus, lip curling. "He's not so unsubtle, nor so little in command of himself. No, if anyone came out of the affair looking the victor, it was Caesar. Of course it was Caesar! He simply smiled at Cato and said that he rather thought Cato would prefer that the contents of the note remain private. He got up and gave Cato the note so courteously, so pleasantly—oh, it was well done!"

  "Then how was I exposed?" whispered Servilia.

  “Cato just couldn't believe what his eyes saw. It took him ages to decipher those few words, while we all waited with bated breath. Then he crushed your message into a ball and threw it at Caesar like a missile. But of course the distance was too great. Philippus grabbed it from the floor and read it. Then he passed it along the praetors-elect until it reached the curule dais."

  "And they roared with laughter," said Servilia between her teeth. "Oh, they would!"

  “Pipinna,'' he mocked.

  Another woman would have flinched, but not Servilia, who snarled. "Fools!"

  "The hilarity made it hard for Cicero to make himself heard when he demanded a division."

  Even in the midst of her travail her avidity for politics showed. "A division? For what?"

  “To decide the fate of our captive conspirators, poor souls. Execution or exile. I voted to execute, that's what your note forced me to do. Caesar had advocated exile, and had the House on his side until Cato spoke up for execution. Cato swung everyone around. The division went for execution. Thanks to you, Servilia. If your note hadn't silenced Cato he would have filibustered until sunset, and the vote wouldn't have been taken until tomorrow. My feeling is that by tomorrow the House would have seen the sense of Caesar's argument. If I were Caesar, my dear, I'd cut you up and feed you to the wolves."

  That disconcerted her, but her contempt for Silanus eventually made her dismiss this opinion. “When are the executions to take place?"

  "They're taking place right at this moment. I deemed it best to come home and warn you before Cato could arrive."

  She leaped to her feet. "Brutus!"

  But Silanus, not without satisfaction, had cocked his ear in the direction of the atrium, and now smiled sourly. "Too late, my dear, far too late. Cato is upon us."

  Still Servilia made a move toward the door, only to stop short of it when Cato erupted through it, the first finger and thumb of his right hand pincered agonizingly into Brutus's earlobe.

  "Get in here and look at her, your strumpet of a mother!" bellowed Cato, releasing Brutus's ear and pushing him so hard in the small of the back that he staggered and would have fallen were it not for Silanus, who steadied him. The lad looked so appalled and bewildered that he probably had not even begun to understand what was happening, thought Silanus as he moved away.

  Why do I feel so strange? then asked Silanus of himself. Why am I in some secret corner so delighted by this, so vindicated? Today my world has learned that I am a cuckold, and yet I find that of much less moment than I find this delicious retribution, my wife's hugely deserved comeuppance. I hardly find it in me to blame Caesar. It was her, I know it was her. He doesn't bother with the wives of men who haven't irritated him politically, and until today I have never irritated him politically. It was her, I know it was her. She wanted him, she went after him. That's why she gave Brutus to his daughter! To keep Caesar in the family. He wouldn't marry her, so she beggared her pride. Quite a feat for Servilia, that! And now Cato, the man she loathes most in all the world, is privy to both her passions—Brutus and Caesar. Her days of peace and self-satisfaction are over. From now on there will be a hideous war, just as in her childhood. Oh, she'll win! But how many of them will live to see her triumph? I for one will not, for which I am profoundly glad. I pray I am the first to go.

  "Look at her, your strumpet of a mother!" Cato bellowed again, slapping Brutus viciously about the head.

  "Mama, Mama, what is it?" Brutus whimpered, ears ringing and eyes watering.

  " 'Mama, Mama!' " Cato mimicked, sneering. " 'Mama, Mama!' What a dimwit you are, Brutus, what a lapdog, what an apology for a man! Brutus the baby, Brutus the booby! 'Mama, Mama!' " Slapping Brutus's head viciously.

  Servilia moved with the speed and style of a striking snake, straight for Cato, and so suddenly that she was upon him before he could swing his attention away from Brutus. Between them she went with both hands up, fingers crooked into claws, took Cato's face in their embrace and dug her nails into his flesh until they sank like grapples. Had he not instinctively screwed his eyes shut she would have blinded him, but her talons raked him from brow to jawline on right side and on left side, gouged down to muscle and then kept on going along his neck and into his shoulders.

  Even a warrior like Cato retreated, thin howls of terrible pain dying away as his opening eyes took in the sight of a Servilia more frightful than anything except dead Caepio's face, a Servilia whose lips were peeled back from her teeth and whose eyes blazed murder. Then under the distended gaze of her son, her husband and her half brother she lifted her dripping fingers to her mouth and luxuriously sucked Cato's flesh from them. Silanus gagged and fled. Brutus f
ainted. Which left Cato glaring at her between rivers of blood.

  "Get out and don't ever come back," she said softly.

  "I will end in owning your son, never doubt it!"

  "If you so much as try, Cato, what I've done to you today will look like the kiss of a butterfly."

  "You are monstrous!"

  "Just get out, Cato."

  Cato got out, holding folds of toga against his face and neck.

  "Now why didn't I think to tell him that it was I sent Caepio to his death?'' she wondered as she squatted down beside the inanimate form of her son. "Never mind," she went on, wiping Cato from her fingers before she began to minister to Brutus, "I have that little item saved for another time."

  He came to full consciousness slowly, perhaps because inside his mind there now dwelled an absolute terror of his mother, who could eat Cato's flesh with relish. But eventually he had no other choice than to open his eyes and stare up at her.

  "Get up and sit on the couch."

  Brutus got up and sat on the couch.

  "Do you know what all that was about?"

  "No, Mama," he whispered.

  "Not even when Cato called me a strumpet?"

  "No, Mama," he whispered.

  "I am not a strumpet, Brutus."

  "No, Mama."

  "However," said Servilia, disposing herself in a chair from which she could move quickly to Brutus's side if she needed, "you are definitely old enough to understand the ways of the world, so it is time I enlightened you about certain matters anyway. What all that was about," she went on in conversational tones, "is the fact that for some years Julia's father has been my lover."

  He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands, quite unable to put two thoughts together, a hapless mass of misery and bewildered pain. First, all that in Concord while he stood at its doors listening—then, reporting to his mother—then, a blissful interval of wrestling with the writings of Fabius Pictor—then, Uncle Cato charging in and seizing his ear—then, Uncle Cato shouting at his mother—then, Mama attacking Uncle Cato, and—and— The full horror of what his mother had done after that struck Brutus afresh; he shivered and shuddered, wept desolately behind his hands.