Saturnalia(63)
“If you will forgive me, Caius Julius,” I broke in, “I think a public scandal is exactly what is needed just now. What I saw …”
“What you saw, Decius,” Caesar said, in tones like ringing sword steel, “was enough to bring charges against three silly patrician women and exactly one Etruscan peasant woman. I daresay you could harangue the Popular Assemblies and get some sort of action, but it would be mob hysteria and it would be aimed at all the market people from the outlying territories, specifically the Marsians. I need hardly remind you that we fought a very bloody war with the Marsians not so long ago, and it wouldn’t take a great provocation to make them take arms against us now, the very last thing we need with war facing us in Gaul.”
“Very true,” Bestia said. “People are on edge just now. A bit of loose talk about witchcraft and human sacrifice would spread through the slums like a fire. One foreign slave sacrificed over a mundus would become twenty citizen’s children murdered and eaten. I agree, it’s too risky.”
“I urge moderation also,” said Varro. “The offense scarcely seems to merit the sort of public unrest sure to arise.”
“I do not like the idea of alien barbarities practiced right on Rome’s doorstep,” Father said, “practically beneath the noses of the censors, for all practical purposes. Perhaps we can indict the woman Furia and try her alone. Punish their ringleader or high priestess or whatever she is, and the others will scuttle for their hills.”
“An excellent idea at any other time,” Caesar said, “but there will be no courts for the balance of December, and with the new year the new magistrates take office. To testify against the woman, your son will have to be in the City while Publius Clodius is tribune.”
“That does make it touchy,” Father said.
“I’m not afraid of Clodius!” I protested.
“Who needs to be afraid of Clodius?” Father said. “Do you think it will be some sort of Homeric duel between champions? He’ll be untouchable, and he’ll have a thousand men each eager to curry favor with him by delivering your head.”
“Unless,” Bestia put in, “it’s true what I heard, that you and Clodius have patched things up?”
“What’s this?” Father said, frowning.
“Yes, Decius,” Caesar said, amused, “tell us all about this prodigy.”
“Clodius thinks my investigation will prove his sister innocent,” I said, cursing Bestia’s big mouth. “I put no stock in his protestations of a truce. Whether I find for or against her, it will be open war again.”
“All the more reason to be away from Rome next year,” Caesar said. He smiled and cocked an eye at Father. “Cut-Nose, why not send him with me to Gaul? I have plenty of room on my staff for another aide.”
This proposal chilled my spine as even the sights out on the Vatican field had not. I was about to squawk out a horrified protest when the smirks on the faces of Varro and Bestia made me stop.
“I am honored, Caius Julius,” I said, managing not to grit my teeth. “I shall, of course, defer to my father’s wishes.”
“Let me discuss it with the family,” said the heartless old villain. “Might do him some good.”
Having apparently settled things to their satisfaction, the others took their leave and I saw them all to the door. From outside came the sounds of reveling. The final, frantic night of Saturnalia was well underway.
When they were gone, I turned to Father. “Are you insane?” I cried. “He is marching into a war with a major coalition of Gauls!”
“Of course he is,” Father said. “You need a good war. When was the last time you saw any real fighting? Wasn’t it that business in Spain against Sertorius? And what year was that?” He thought a bit. “It was during the slave rebellion, in the consulship of Gellius and Clodianus. By Jupiter, that was thirteen years ago! You’ll have no future in office if you don’t get a few successful campaigns behind you.”
“I’ll have no future at all if I march off with Caesar! According to Lisas, he’s going to end up fighting Germans!”
“So what?” Father said scornfully. “They’re just barbarians. They die like anybody else when you stick your sword in them. Why are you so reluctant to spend some time with the legions?”
“It’s a foolish war. Most of them are foolish these days. Our wars are just excuses for political adventurers like Caesar and Pompey to win glory and get elected.”
“Exactly. And some of them will win glory and will get elected, and the men who support them in winning that glory will hold the positions of power. Use your head, boy! If they aren’t fighting barbarians, they’ll fight each other. Then it will be Roman against Roman, just as it was when Marius and Sulla fought it out twenty-odd years ago. Do you want to see those days come again? Let them slaughter Gauls and Germans and Spaniards and Macedonians. Let them march down the Nile and fight the Pygmies, for all I care, so long as they don’t shed the blood of citizens here in Rome!”