The news that Caesar had arrived outside Rome reached Cato and Bibulus almost as quickly as it did Pompey, for all three were in the House enduring yet another session debating the fate of the Asian tax-farmers. The message was given to Pompey, who whooped so loudly that dozing backbenchers almost fell off their stools, then leaped to his feet.
"Pray excuse me, Lucius Afranius," he chortled, already on his way out. "Gaius Caesar is on the Campus Martius, and I must be the first of us to welcome him in person!"
Which somehow left those remaining in the poorly attended meeting feeling as flat as an Asian publicanus. Afranius, who held the fasces for June, dismissed the assembly for the day.
"Tomorrow an hour after dawn," he said, well aware that he would have to hear Caesar's petition to stand in absentia, and that tomorrow was the last day before the Nones of June, when the electoral officer (Celer) would close his booth.
"I told you he'd do it," said Metellus Scipio. "He's like a piece of cork. No matter how you try to hold him under, up he pops again hardly wet."
"Well, there was always a very good chance he'd turn up," said Bibulus, lips tight. "After all, we don't even know when he set out from Spain. Just because we heard he was planning to remain in Gades until the end of May doesn't mean he actually did. He can't know what's in store for him."
"He will the moment Pompeius reaches the Campus Martius," Cato said harshly. "Why do you think the Dancer convened another meeting for tomorrow? Caesar will be petitioning to stand in absentia, nothing surer."
"I miss Catulus," said Bibulus. "It's times like tomorrow his clout would be extremely useful. Caesar did better in Spain than any of us thought he would, so the sheep will be inclined to let the ingrate stand in absentia. Pompeius will urge it, so will Crassus. And Mamercus! I wish he'd die!"
Cato simply smiled and looked mysterious.
Whereas Pompey on the Campus Martius had nothing to smile about and no mysteries to contemplate. He found Caesar leaning against the rounded marble wall of Sulla's tomb, his horse's bridle over one arm; above his head was that famous epitaph: NO BETTER FRIEND · NO WORSE ENEMY. It might, thought Pompey, have been written as much for Caesar as for Sulla. Or for himself.
"What on earth are you doing here?" Pompey demanded.
"It seemed as good a place as any to wait."
"Haven't you heard of a villa on the Pincian?"
"I do not intend to be here long enough."
"There's an inn not far down the Via Lata, we'll go there. Minicius is a good fellow, and you have to put a roof over your head, Caesar, even if it is for a few days only."
"More important to find you before I thought about where to stay, I thought."
That melted Pompey's heart; he too had dismounted (since he had resumed his seat in the Senate he kept a small stable inside Rome), and now turned to stroll down the perfectly straight and wide road which actually was the commencement of the Via Flaminia.
"I suppose nine months of kicking your heels gave you plenty of time to find out where the inns are located," said Caesar.
"I found that out back before I was consul."
The inn was a fairly commodious and respectable establishment, its proprietor well used to the sight of famous Roman military men; he greeted Pompey like a long-lost friend, and indicated with some charm that he was aware who Caesar was. They were ushered into a comfortable private parlor where two braziers warmed the smoky air, and were served immediately with water and wine, together with such goodies as roast lamb, sausages, fresh crusty bread and an oil-laced salad.
"I'm ravenous!" Caesar exclaimed, surprised.
"Tuck in then. I confess I don't mind helping you. Minicius prides himself on his food."
Between mouthfuls Caesar managed to give Pompey a bald outline of his voyage.
"A sou'wester at this time of year!" said the Great Man.
"No, I don't think I'd call it a noble wind like that. But it was enough to give me a push in the right direction. I gather the boni didn't expect to see me so soon?"
"Cato and Bibulus got a nasty jolt, certainly. Whereas others like Cicero seem simply to have assumed you would be well on your way as a matter of course—however, they didn't have spies in Further Spain to keep them informed of your intentions." Pompey scowled. "Cicero! What a poseur that man is! Do you know he had the gall to stand up in the House and refer to his banishment of Catilina as an 'immortal glory'? Every speech he makes contains some sort of sermon on how he saved his country."
"I heard you were thick with him," said Caesar, mopping up his salad oil with a piece of bread.
"He would have it so. He's frightened."
“Of what?'' Caesar leaned back with a sigh of content.
"The change in Publius Clodius's status. The tribune of the plebs Herennius had the Plebeian Assembly transfer Clodius from the Patriciate to the Plebs. Now Clodius is saying he intends to run for the tribunate of the plebs and exile Cicero for good for the execution of Roman citizens without trial. It's Clodius's new purpose in life. And Cicero is white with fear."
“Well, I can understand a man like Cicero being terrified of our Clodius. Clodius is a force of nature. Not quite mad, but not quite sane either. However, Herennius is wrong to use the Plebeian Assembly. A patrician can only become a plebeian by adoption."
Minicius bustled in to remove the dishes, creating a pause in the conversation Caesar found welcome. Time to get down to business.
"Is the Senate still stalled among the tax-farmers?" he asked.
"Eternally, thanks to Cato. But as soon as Celer closes his electoral booth I'm sending my tribune of the plebs Flavius back to the Plebs with my land bill. Emasculated, thanks to that officious fool Cicero! He managed to remove any ager publicus older than the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus from it, then said that Sulla's veterans—the very ones who allied themselves with Catilina!— must be confirmed in their land grants, and that Volaterrae and Arretium must be allowed to keep their public lands. Most of the land for my veterans will therefore have to be purchased, and the money is to come out of the increased tributes from the East. Which gave my ex-brother-in-law Nepos a terrific idea. He suggested that all port duties and taxes be removed from the whole of Italia, and the Senate thought that was wonderful. So he got a consultum from the Senate and passed his law in the Popular Assembly."
"Clever!" said Caesar appreciatively. "That means the State's income from Italia has gone down to two items only—the five percent tax on manumission of slaves and the rents from ager publicus."
"Makes me look good, doesn't it? The Treasury will end in seeing not one extra sestertius from my work, between the loss of port revenues, loss of the ager publicus when it's deeded to my veterans, and the cost of buying in extra land as well."
"You know, Magnus," said Caesar, looking wry, "I am always hoping that the day comes when these brilliant men think more of their homeland than they do of getting back at their enemies. Every political move they make is aimed at some other fellow or done to protect the privileges of a very few, rather than for the sake of Rome and her domains. You've exerted yourself mightily to extend Rome's reach and plump out her public purse. Whereas they extend themselves mightily to put you in your place—at poor Rome's expense. You said in your letter that you needed me. And here I am at your service."
"Minicius!" Pompey bellowed.
"Yes, Gnaeus Pompeius?" asked the innkeeper, appearing with great alacrity.
"Fetch us writing materials."
"However," said Caesar as he completed his short letter, "I think it would be better if Marcus Crassus presented my petition to stand in absentia for the consulship. I'll send this to him by messenger."
"Why can't I present your petition?" Pompey asked, annoyed that Caesar preferred to use Crassus.
"Because I don't want the boni to realize that we've come to any kind of agreement," said Caesar patiently. "You will already have set them wondering by dashing out of the House announcing that you were off to see me on
the Campus Martius. Don't underestimate them, Magnus, please. They can tell a radish from a ruby. The bond between you and me must be kept secret for some time to, come."
"Yes, I do see that," said Pompey, a little mollified. "I just don't want you becoming more committed to Crassus than you are to me. I don't mind if you help him with the tax-farmers and bribery laws aimed at the knights, but it's far more important to get land for my soldiers and ratify my settlement of the East."
"Quite so," said Caesar serenely. "Send Flavius to the Plebs, Magnus. It will throw dust in many pairs of eyes."
At which moment Balbus and Burgundus arrived. Pompey greeted the Gadetanian banker with great joy, while Caesar concentrated on a very tired looking Burgundus. His mother would say he had been inconsiderate, expecting a man as old as Burgundus to labor at an oar twelve hours a day for twelve days.
"I'll be off," said Pompey.
Caesar escorted the Great Man to the inn door. "Lie low and make it look as if you're still fighting your own war unaided."
"Crassus won't like it that you sent for me."
"He probably won't even know. Was he in the House?"
"No," said Pompey, grinning. "He says it's too deleterious to his health. Listening to Cato gives him a headache."
When the Senate convened an hour after dawn on the fourth day of June, Marcus Crassus applied to speak. Gracious consent was accorded him by Lucius Afranius, who accepted Caesar's petition to stand for the consulship in absentia.
"It's a very reasonable request," said Crassus at the end of a workmanlike oration, "which this House ought to approve. Every last one of you is well aware that not the slightest hint of improper conduct in his province is attached to Gaius Caesar, and improper conduct was the cause of our consular Marcus Cicero's law. Here is a man who did everything correctly, including solving a vexed problem Further Spain had suffered for years: Gaius Caesar brought in the best and fairest debt legislation I have ever seen, and not one individual, debtor or creditor, has complained."
"Surely that doesn't surprise you, Marcus Crassus," Bibulus drawled. "If anyone knows how to deal with debt, it's Gaius Caesar. He probably owed money in Spain too."
"Then you might well have to apply to him for information, Marcus Bibulus," said Crassus, unruffled as ever. “If you manage to get yourself elected consul, you'll be up to your eyebrows in debt from bribing the voters." He cleared his throat and waited for a reply; not receiving one, he continued. "I repeat, this is a very reasonable request which the House ought to approve."
Afranius called for other consular speakers, who all indicated that they agreed with Crassus. Not many of the incumbent praetors fancied adding anything until Metellus Nepos rose.
"Why," he asked, "should this House accord any favors to a notorious homosexual? Has everyone forgotten how our gorgeous Gaius Caesar lost his virginity? Face down on a couch in the palace of King Nicomedes, a royal penis stuck up his arse! Do what you like, Conscript Fathers, but if you want to grant a pansy like Gaius Caesar the privilege of becoming consul without showing his pretty face inside Rome, you may count me out! I'll do no special favors to a man with a well-poked anus!"
The silence was complete; no one so much as drew a breath.
"Retract that, Quintus Nepos!" Afranius snapped.
"Shove it up your own arse, son of Aulus!" cried Nepos, and strode out of the Curia Hostilia.
"Scribes, you will delete Quintus Nepos's remarks," Afranius directed, red-faced at the insults thrown his way. "It has not escaped me that the manners and conduct of members of the Senate of Rome have undergone a marked deterioration over the years I've belonged to what used to be an august and respectable body. I hereby ban Quintus Nepos from attendance at meetings of the Senate while I hold the fasces. Now who else has anything to say?"
"I do, Lucius Afranius," said Cato.
"Then speak, Marcus Porcius Cato."
It seemed to take Cato an eternity to get himself settled; he shifted, fiddled, cleared his respiratory passages with some deep-breathing exercises, smoothed his hair, adjusted his toga. Finally he opened his mouth to bark words.
"Conscript Fathers, the state of morals in Rome is a tragedy. We, the men who stand above all others because we are members of Rome's most senior governing body, are not fulfilling our duty as custodians of Roman morals. How many men here are guilty of adultery? How many wives of men here are guilty of adultery? How many children of men here are guilty of adultery? How many parents of men here are guilty of adultery? My great-grandfather the Censor—the best man Rome has ever produced—held absolute opinions on morality, as he did about everything. He never paid more than five thousand sesterces for a slave. He never pilfered the affections of a Roman woman, nor lay with her. After his wife Licinia died, he contented himself with the services of a slave, as is fitting for a man in his seventies. But when his own son and daughter-in-law complained that the slave had set herself up as queen of the household, he put the girl away and married again. But he would not choose a bride from among his peers, for he deemed himself too aged to be an adequate husband for a Roman noblewoman. So he married the daughter of his freedman Salonius. I am descended from that stock, and proud to say it. Cato the Censor was a moral man, an upright man, an adornment to this State. He used to love thunderstorms because his wife would cling to him in terror, and thus he could permit himself to embrace her in front of the servants and the free members of his household. Because, as we all know, a decent and moral Roman husband ought not to indulge his senses in places and at times not suited to private activities. I have modeled my own life and conduct on my great-grandfather, who when it came time to die forbade the expenditure of large sums of money on his obsequies. He went to a modest pyre and his ashes into a plain glazed jar. His tomb is even plainer, yet it sits on the side of the Via Appia always adorned with flowers brought by some admiring citizen. But what if Cato the Censor were to walk the streets of modern Rome? What would those clear eyes see? What would those perceptive ears hear? What would that formidable and lucid intellect think? I shudder to speak of it, Conscript Fathers, but I fear I must. I do not think he could bear to live in this cesspool we call Rome. Women sit in the gutters so drunk they vomit. Men lurk in alleyways to rob and murder. Children of both sexes prostitute themselves outside Venus Erucina's. I have even seen what appeared to be respectable men lift their tunics and squat to defaecate in the street when a public latrine is in full sight! Privacy for bodily functions and modesty in conduct are deemed old-fashioned, ridiculous, laughable. Cato the Censor would weep. Then he would go home and hang himself. Oh, how often I have had to resist the temptation to do the same!"
"Don't, Cato, don't resist it a moment longer!" cried Crassus.
Cato ground on without seeming to notice. “Rome is a stew. But what else can one expect when the men sitting in this House have plundered the wives of other men, or think no more of the sanctity of their flesh than to yield unmentionable orifices to unmentionable acts? Cato the Censor would weep. And look at me, Conscript Fathers! See how I weep? How can a state be strong, how can it contemplate ruling the world, when the men who rule it are degenerate, decadent, filthy running sores? We must stop all this interest in extraneous irrelevancies like the Asian publicani and devote one whole year to weeding Rome's moral garden!—to putting decency back as our highest priority!—to enacting laws which make it impossible for men to violate other men, for patrician delinquents to boast openly of incestuous relationships, for governors of our provinces to sexually exploit children! Women who commit adultery ought to be executed, as they were in the old days. Women who drink wine ought to be executed, as they were in the old days. Women who appear at public meetings in the Forum to barrack and shout coarse insults ought to be executed—though not as they were in the old days, because in the old days no woman would have dreamed of doing that! Women bear and mother children, they have no other use! But where are the laws we need to enforce a proper moral standard? They do not exist, Conscript
Fathers! Yet if Rome is to survive they must come into existence!"
"You'd think," Cicero whispered to Pompey, "that he was talking to the inhabitants of Plato's ideal Republic, not to men who have to wallow in Romulus's shit."
"He's going to filibuster until after the sun sets," Pompey said grimly. "What utter rubbish he's prating! Men are men and women are women. They got up to the same tricks under the first consuls that they do under Celer and Afranius today."
"Mind you," roared Cato, "the present scandalous conditions are a direct result of too much exposure to eastern laxity! Since we extended our reach down Our Sea to places like Anatolia and Syria, we Romans have fallen into disgustingly dirty habits imported from those sinks of iniquity! For every cherry or orange brought back to increase our beloved homeland's fruitfulness, there are ten thousand evils. It is a wrong act to conquer the world, and I make no bones about saying so. Let Rome continue to be what Rome always was in the old days, a contained and moral place filled with hardworking citizens who minded their own business and cared not a rush what happened in Campania or Etruria, let alone Anatolia or Syria! Every Roman then was happy and content. The change came when greedy and ambitious men lifted themselves above the level set for all men—we must control Campania, we must impose our rule on Etruria, every Italian must become Roman, and all roads must lead to Rome! The worm began to eat—enough money was no longer enough, and power was more intoxicating than wine. Look at the number of State-funded funerals we endure these days! How often in the old days did the State disburse its precious moneys to bury men well able to pay for their own funerals? How often does the State do so today? Sometimes it feels as if we endure one State funeral per nundinum! I was urban quaestor, I know how much public money is wasted on fribbles like funerals and feasts! Why should the State contribute to public banquets so that the Head Count can gorge itself on eels and oysters, take home the leftovers in a sack? I can tell you why! In order that some ambitious man can buy himself the consulship! 'Oh, but!' he cries. 'Oh, but the Head Count can't give me votes! I am a Roman patriot, I simply like to give pleasure to those who cannot afford pleasure!' No, the Head Count can't give him votes! But all the merchants who provide the food and drink can and do give him votes! Look at Gaius Caesar's flowers when he was curule aedile! Not to mention sufficient refreshments to fill two hundred thousand undeserving bellies! Try to add up, if you can, the number of fish and flower vendors who owe Gaius Caesar their first vote! But it is legal, our bribery laws cannot touch him...."