I Am Rome, page 24
It was only a moment.
The sheets stopped moving up and down. The bed was still.
Gaius Marius Jr. pulled a gold coin from underneath his toga. He carefully opened his father’s mouth and placed it inside. The funeral rites would soon begin, but first he wanted to make sure that Charon would guide his father safely across the River Styx. They had just lost the man he believed would always be the greatest, most intelligent, most skillful Roman military leader of all time. Marius’s son believed this, of course, because he could not see the future.
Atrium of Gaius Marius’s residence
Marius Jr. appeared in the atrium. He made the announcement without fanfare, like a messenger stating the facts and nothing more, as Marius would’ve liked him to: “My father…has died.”
Roman Forum
January of 86 B.C.
One day after the death of Gaius Marius
Caesar’s family was returning from the forum after attending Marius’s cremation.
“Marius’s death is such a great loss,” Aurelia said to her husband as they walked back to the Suburra, flanked by their slaves and a few of Marius’s men who continued to protect the Julia family out of friendship and loyalty. “I only hope that his dream for peace in Rome will be fulfilled.”
Just then they crossed paths with a large group of armed men, led by a relatively young man in his late twenties.
“That’s Fimbria,” Caesar Sr. said, increasing his pace and urging his wife, son, and daughters to speed up as well. “Let’s get home.”
“Who is Fimbria?” asked Caesar Jr.
“He’s Cinna’s right-hand man, and Cinna, my son, is the de facto ruler of Rome, now that the Senate has been suppressed and the Plebeian Council is under his command,” his father replied before glancing at Aurelia. “And with Fimbria controlling the streets, I would not count on peace in Rome. He is the most violent of Cinna’s men. We might share the popular cause, but neither Marius nor I agree with—agreed with—Fimbria and Cinna’s methods.”
Athens
March, 86 B.C.
Sulla ascended to the top of the Acropolis in Athens to take in the scene. It was a catastrophe for the Greeks, a lesson. The entire city was fuel for the fire. And, wherever the all-consuming flames had not yet reached, the Roman soldiers wreaked havoc, raping, pillaging, and plundering.
Dolabella was a man of few scruples, but seeing that legendary city made beautiful by the sculptor Phidias and governed in times past by the brilliant Pericles reduced to rubble and ashes made him feel uneasy. Sulla was out of control. First he’d marched on Rome with the legions, something unheard of, outrageous. Then he’d pillaged the sacred temple of Delphi, and now he’d set fire to Athens with the excuse that the city had been too submissive when Mithridates advanced through Greece in hopes that the King of Pontus would free the Hellenic people from the Roman yoke.
“Was all this really necessary?” Dolabella asked, while smoke and flames raged as far as the eye could see.
“From a strictly military standpoint, no,” Sulla admitted, “but from a strategic perspective, in the context of this war in which cities must decide whether to remain loyal to Rome or align themselves with Mithridates, yes, it was necessary. I think my message will be heard loud and clear throughout the entire Greek world: you’re either with us, or our flames will consume your homes. There’s no middle ground. Come, let’s climb down from here before the fire surrounds us completely and blocks our way.”
Dolabella trailed behind Sulla, processing his leader’s cruel and merciless intelligence.
Julia family domus, Rome
Autumn, 86 B.C.
Cinna appeared unannounced at the Julia family residence, where as always he was welcomed as a guest of honor. And as always, he was accompanied by his daughter.
The girl, now ten, was comfortable in this home, where the domina treated her like one of her own daughters. Aurelia was still regularly giving her lessons in Greek and was always kind to her.
Caesar and Cornelia, without having to be told by their parents, immediately went off together to the back atrium of the domus to let the adults talk politics and other serious matters. And once in the back atrium, without a word, Caesar took Cornelia by the hand and they went directly to the tablinum, where they could listen in on that adult conversation.
“We are all greatly saddened to lose Marius but I am glad to see you are doing a fine job ruling the city on your own,” Caesar Sr. began in a friendly tone. “Appointing Lucius Valerius Flaccus to replace Marius as consul was a good idea. He’s a prudent man and will know how to appease the more hostile conservatives in the Senate.” He avoided mention of the violent Fimbria, to whom Cinna had conceded broad powers.
“Yes, that’s why I appointed him,” Cinna responded as he served himself wine. “Flaccus is prudent, to be certain. Sometimes I think he may be too prudent.”
Caesar Sr. let the comment go unanswered. He knew that Cinna was in favor of more radical actions and violence to keep control of power, which was why he had supported the cruel Fimbria’s ascent.
“I’m going to send a new army to Greece,” Cinna announced. “I don’t want the war against Mithridates to stay in Sulla’s hands alone.”
“He’s won several victories,” Caesar Sr. pointed out cautiously. “In Chaeronea and Orchomenus, if my information is correct. Perhaps…too many victories?”
Cinna smiled. “The wise Caesar has always remained on the margins of Roman politics,” he said, watching Caesar Sr. attentively and noting his reactions and expressions. “Many believe it is because you are a poor politician. But I think differently: I think you’ve seen too many men die after getting close to power. I think you’re more intelligent than you let on. Gaius Marius regularly visited your home. He valued your advice, and so do I. Caesar, do you think it’s a good idea to send a second army?”
Caesar Sr. drank from his cup and quickly considered his response. It didn’t make sense to deny his reasons for remaining discreet and distant from politics. Cinna had figured it out. He knew that his family’s safety was at stake.
“Yes. I’d say that sending a second army to keep Sulla from taking full credit for the imminent victory against Mithridates seems like a good idea,” Caesar finally said.
“I knew it! By Hercules!” Cinna exclaimed. “The fact that you support this move tells me that it’s even more necessary. I’ll send Flaccus to lead that army. That will appease the Senate, the optimates, I mean.”
“Flaccus is a good choice,” Caesar Sr. agreed.
“Good,” Cinna continued. “If your son was older, I’d suggest he join this new army. It would be a good opportunity for him to begin to make a name for himself. But I suppose he’s still too young, isn’t he?”
“He is only fourteen. Too young for this campaign.”
“Still too young for war, but not too young to marry.”
Caesar Sr. and Aurelia had been expecting a comment such as this.
“Remember that we have an agreement, my friend,” Cinna went on, still smiling.
“I haven’t forgotten, my friend and consul,” Caesar Sr. responded. “My son and your daughter shall marry. But your little girl is not yet a woman. She is only…”
“Ten years old,” Cinna answered with a certain air of annoyance, as if the girl were somehow guilty of growing up too slowly. “But she will soon reach viri potens and be able to grow a strong male heir in her womb.”
His words sounded more like a threat than a declaration of fact.
Aurelia looked down. No one noticed. She was beginning to harbor doubts about the marriage between her son and the young Cornelia. Marius had served as a counterweight to Cinna’s unchecked ambition. With him gone, an alliance with the popular leader seemed less and less advantageous every day. For now, the only things standing in the way of this marriage were her husband’s cleverness and the fact that the girl had not yet menstruated.
“Shall we eat?” Aurelia suggested, forcing a smile.
“Please,” said Cinna.
A short while later, without anyone calling them in, Caesar Jr. and Cornelia appeared in the central atrium to join the meal.
Aurelia noticed that the children were quite content in each other’s company and decided not to make any rash decisions. The natural course of events would determine their destiny.
Caesar’s sisters, Julia Major and Julia Minor, joined the informal gathering and, as everyone chatted amicably, Aurelia forgot her underlying concerns about Cinna’s haste to accelerate the marriage. The dinner ended, and Cinna and his daughter bid their hosts a warm farewell.
That night, alone in their bedroom, seated on the edge of the bed, Caesar Sr. surprised his wife with an unexpected comment: “I’m going to accept the marriage proposals our daughters have received.”
“From Pinarius and Balbus?” she asked, referring to the two men who had recently asked to marry their daughters.
The first, who wanted to marry Julia Major, was of the patrician order, and the second, who wanted to wed Julia Minor, was of plebeian birth. Neither man came from a prominent family, but, in those uncertain times, it seemed wiser, safer, to wed their daughters to men of little public importance.
“I’ll say yes to both of them,” Caesar Sr. declared.
Aurelia nodded: “So we’ll only have one worrisome match to deal with.”
“Exactly,” her husband replied.
“The most delicate, the most important.”
“The most delicate, the most important,” he sighed. “I’m tired.”
The comment was odd and perturbed Aurelia; her husband never complained.
Lucius Cornelius Cinna’s domus
That same night
Fimbria arrived past midnight. He was armed and accompanied by a large group of men who loved violence as much as he did, all of them answering to him.
“You have summoned me, Consul?” he said.
“I have summoned you,” Cinna confirmed, then took the man by the arm and led him into the tablinum. “I’m going to move forward with my plan to send a second army to the East against Mithridates.”
“Very good,” said Fimbria, unclear how the news affected him.
“Valerius Flaccus will be at the command of that army.”
“Flaccus? But Flaccus is a coward. As a politician he might be all right, as consul, here in Rome. But he’s so…weak.”
“I know. That is precisely why the Senate will accept him in this role. The conservatives in particular will not see him as a threat to Sulla, knowing that someone like Flaccus could never prevail in the war against Mithridates. So we’ll be able to get them to agree without any difficulty.”
Fimbria could understand the logic, but he didn’t see what good it would do to send someone like Flaccus to battle a wolf like Sulla.
“I know, I know,” Cinna continued, as if reading the thoughts of his most trusted man. “Flaccus is easy prey for Sulla. That’s why you will accompany him on this military campaign to the East. You will do so in the capacity of legatus at the head of a legion. That’s why I’ve called you here tonight.”
Fimbria nodded, slowly. “The consul could have told me this in the morning at the forum or in the Curia Hostilia or—”
Cinna interrupted him. “Of course. I’ve summoned you in the middle of the night not merely to tell you this, but to inform you that you’ll have two missions on this campaign. Missions that I can’t speak of in the forum, surrounded by senators from one faction or another.”
Fimbria remained very still. “Two missions?”
Cinna liked the fact that Fimbria was hanging on his every word. “I would’ve liked to name you consul, or proconsul with imperium over that second army in the East, but you are too young, not yet thirty. And, as we’ve said, Flaccus will be readily accepted. Your first mission will be to assassinate him and take control of the army. I don’t care how you do it, but do it. The army must be under your control before you reach Asia.”
“Agreed. I can do it,” Fimbria said. He liked the idea of an entire army under his command. He had risen rapidly to power, and he didn’t mind killing to reach new heights. Even if the man he had to kill was a Roman consul. In any case, he was a weak consul. “You said I’ll have two missions.”
“Yes, two,” Cinna said, then paused, as if the second mission were so difficult it was hard to say it aloud. He sat on a solium.
Fimbria remained standing. He thought he knew the consul’s second objective. “The second mission is to defeat Mithridates myself, isn’t it?”
Cinna slowly ran his fingers through his beard. He swallowed. He looked down, then raised his eyes to meet Fimbria’s as he spoke methodically, in a low voice that nonetheless rang out cold and clear as day: “No. Mithridates doesn’t matter. He is secondary. We shall eliminate him in due time. Your second mission will be to assassinate Sulla.”
XXXV
The Death of Julius Caesar
Julia family domus, Rome
85 B.C.
They had just cremated Caesar’s father.
Within weeks, the tiredness Caesar Sr. had mentioned to Aurelia evolved into pain, the pain to illness, the illness to death.
Caesar sat at one end of a triclinium curled in on himself with his hands over his ears, as if he didn’t want to hear anyone or anything.
He’d just become pater familias at the tender age of fifteen. The great general Scipio had also been forced into that responsibility at a young age, but not that young. And he didn’t feel at all like Scipio. He felt like nothing.
The young Caesar was overwhelmed. Frightened. His father had wrapped up some important matters, such as his sisters’ marriages, which had provided him with his last moments of happiness. Before dying, Caesar Sr. had gotten to meet his granddaughter Acia,[*] daughter of Julia Minor and Balbus.
Caesar, in the center of the atrium, his eyes closed, intuited someone’s presence and sat up as he lowered his hands and opened his eyes.
Cornelia was standing there.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Caesar looked at her in silence. At only eleven years old, the girl was already starting to look like a woman. A calm, attractive woman. Cornelia was growing up quickly, even if it wasn’t quick enough for her father.
“Thank you,” Caesar said, and he gestured for her to take a seat on a comfortable cathedra beside him.
The Senate, now controlled by the populares, had named Cinna consul for the third time. Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, more moderate, was the other maximum leader for that year, but everyone knew that Papirius was a straw man and Cinna the true ruler.
She sat down beside him. She didn’t know the correct thing to do or say, but she hated seeing Caesar so sad.
“I feel so alone,” Caesar said. “Without my uncle and my father, I’m nothing.”
“You’re not nothing,” she quickly replied. “You’re brave.”
He smiled sadly. “Right. I’m brave enough to eavesdrop behind the curtain of the tablinum. So brave. I can already see Sulla trembling before me.”
Cornelia, undaunted, replied calmly, “You won’t have to hide behind a curtain anymore. You’re the pater familias. Now, whoever comes into this house has to address you directly, has to talk to you, let you be the one to decide.”
Caesar suddenly saw her through new eyes: she was not just a little girl, but someone he could turn to. He no longer felt so alone or so overwhelmed. And…there was something else. He looked at her and she at him. They stared into each other’s eyes intensely. And out of nowhere he felt desire for her, a strong desire. He moved his hand closer to hers, but she remained perfectly still.
They’d held hands before, when he led her to the tablinum to listen in on their fathers’ conversations, but those had been the hands of a little boy and a little girl. Now, as Caesar rested his hand on Cornelia’s, she trembled. These were not the hands of two children rushing off to spy on the grown-ups. The longing he felt, her quivering response, were anything but childish. And he imagined taking her face in his hands and kissing her. He imagined many things in that moment. He sensed that she’d sit there and let him kiss her without moving away. But they shouldn’t. And so Caesar, wanting to do only what was best for her, simply held her hand.
Aurelia entered the atrium, calm and collected as always despite her husband’s recent death. She could not afford to let herself be overcome with sadness, even though, on the inside, she was tormented by grief. Without her husband, she now had to remain extra vigilant of everything and everyone.
“Would you like to stay and dine with us today?” she asked the girl.
Cornelia shook her head as if snapping out of a daze and then looked at Caesar. “Would you like me to stay?” she asked before answering Aurelia.
Aurelia did not find Cornelia’s reaction inappropriate. The girl was merely recognizing Caesar’s authority as pater familias.
Caesar nodded.
Aurelia ordered the atriense to bring in another triclinium.
“Is your father coming too?” Caesar asked.
Cornelia shrugged, still flustered by the moment they’d just shared. “My father barely speaks to me, you know that.”
“He is coming,” Aurelia said. “Cinna will be here shortly. He comes to speak with you, Gaius. You can be certain of that.”
Aurelia did not say any more, but, like everyone in Rome, she knew that Cinna had sent a second army to the East under the command of Valerius Flaccus to reduce Sulla’s power in the campaign against Mithridates. It was clearly a political move aimed at putting an end to the populares’ greatest fears: Sulla and, in particular, his victorious return from the East. If Cinna’s plan worked, her son’s match to Cornelia remained advantageous. If Sulla managed to foil Cinna’s plot, however, the union could be just the opposite: a danger, a connection that marked Caesar as an enemy. And Aurelia was certain that Sulla would show Cinna’s son-in-law little mercy.
