“I remember the event.” I had attended the funeral, since there was a family connection, but I was busy politicking for the office of praetor and paid little attention to the speakers.
“Atia hints that Caesar may wish to adopt young Octavius.”
This almost made me choke on a cherry. It wasn’t so surprising that Caesar might want to adopt. He was famously infertile, despite his multiple marriages and innumerable affairs. The death of his single, beloved daughter had devastated him and severed the last connection between him and her husband, Pompey. But little Octavius?
“Why would Caesar want to adopt that wretched little brat?” I exclaimed.
“He is of the noblest lineage, at least on his mother’s side,” Julia said. “Caesar has spent a great deal of time with him and is clearly impressed with his intelligence and potential.”
“Then he’s losing his grip. There are plenty of others with family connections that are better candidates for adoption. Even Brutus, dull as he is.”
“You only think he’s dull because he’s a serious student of philosophy. Do you know what I think? I think you secretly imagined that Caesar might favor you.”
“Me!” I sputtered.
“Admit it! You’ve been close to him, you married his niece, you were his closest confidant in Gaul, you practically wrote his account of the Gallic War yourself.”
“I was a glorified secretary, transcribing his wretched scrawl into something readable. At best I amused him, which is a poor recommendation for adoption. Besides, he’s barely ten years older than I am.”
“That is a nonsensical objection. Men adopt sons older than themselves, for sound political reasons. Clodius, for instance, was a patrician. He wanted to stand for the office of Tribune of the People, which is barred to patricians. So he had himself adopted into a plebeian family, his adoptive father a man his own age.”
“That particular adoption was met with a good deal of senatorial opposition.”
“It was an extreme example, I admit. But it was done, and the adoption of young Octavius by Julius Caesar makes far more political sense.”
“I suppose,” I sighed, no longer very interested. “After all, what is there to inherit? It’s not as if he’s passing on his offices, which must be won politically. He’s built a substantial fortune where he used to have a mountain of debt, that’s something. Otherwise, there’s the prestige of a very ancient patrician name. He’ll get nominated for some of the priesthoods, at least.”
“Decius, envy ill becomes you.”
“Envy? Where did that come from?” However, she would say no more, for which I was thankful.
That morning, I held court. Ordinarily, I would have sat in one of the nearby towns, but it seemed that the countryside had come to me instead, so I employed my temporary tribunal on the temple site. Since it had become as noisy as a Greek funeral, I had my lictors call for silence. When the noise abated a little, I addressed the mob.
“This is not a festival day, no matter what people around here seem to think. It is a day appointed for official business. I won’t put a stop to your activities, but I insist upon decorum and quiet. Anything boisterous will be heavily fined.” A threat to a man’s purse is usually more effective than a threat to his body. Things quieted down and I proceeded with what was almost a routine court day: a Syrian merchant accused of selling an inferior dye as the pure murex (I dismissed the case for lack of evidence); a Cretan slave dealer who accused his citizen colleague of embezzlement (I sentenced the citizen to be sold into slavery, and would have liked to give the Cretan the same treatment).
I was about to adjourn for the afternoon when I saw an odd group of men making their way toward my podium. There were about a dozen of them, all wearing togas, some with senator’s stripes on their tunics, a few wearing red sandals with the ivory crescent of the patrician fastened at the ankle. In the forefront was a man who walked barefoot. He wasn’t even wearing a tunic, just an old-fashioned toga wrapped around his stocky, muscular body.
I covered my eyes and groaned. “The gods have deserted me. Cato is here.”
“Did you forget to sacrifice?” Hermes asked.
“It must have been a greater offense than that.” Marcus Porcius Cato was my least favorite senator and almost my least favorite Roman, now that Clodius was dead. The men who constantly accompanied him were what we had come to call “Catonians”; men who admired or professed to admire Cato’s harsh, abrasive style. Most of them were just looking for an excuse to be rude.
“Hail, Praetor!” Cato yelled, saluting. He was always a stickler for the honors due public office.