The Sacrilege(77)

Clodius laughed and called me his friend, and assured me that the night’s doings would be more in the nature of a lark. I was to take the purple dress and another woman’s gown and veil to the camp of Pompey, where, to my amazement, the general and Faustus Sulla were to don them and return with me to the city after sunset. I was to tell the watch at the gate that these were two ladies from a country estate coming to the city for the rites of the Good Goddess. My patrician insignia would assure compliance.

I did as instructed, although the experience was most bizarre. In the Forum we were joined by Clodius, also in women’s attire, and two other men similarly clad. They mingled with the crowd of highborn ladies entering the house of the Pontifex Maximus and went inside.

I loitered about the Forum for several hours, until I heard a great commotion from inside. Clodius came running out of the house, stripped almost naked and pursued by a mob of women, screaming like furies. I threw my toga over him and we ducked down an alley and ran back to his house. All the way, Clodius was laughing like a madman, with tears of glee streaming from his eyes.

At the house he called for wine and began to drink heavily, without watering the wine. Soon he was quite drunk and boasting so loudly that I dismissed the household staff, lest they overhear. He said that now all his ambitions would be realized, and I asked him to explain, still under the impression that the night’s doings had been no more than a prank.

He said that the three men who were to rule Rome had met at the house of Caesar and had determined upon the future course of the empire and that he, Clodius, had arranged all this. The two most powerful, Pompey and Crassus, could never work together and their rivalry would plunge the empire into civil war. Clodius believed that Caesar was greater than the other two, and had urged him to agree to this meeting, where their rivalries could be hammered out to the profit of all.

This seemed fantastic to me, and I asked him what he meant by it. He replied that he, Clodius, had perceived that Crassus and Pompey were too unimaginative to settle their differences save through battle; that Caesar, while brilliant and masterful, was too lazy to set a reconciliation in motion, and that all three were too bound by traditional forms to do as Sulla did, and set aside the constitution.

At the meeting in Caesar’s house, Clodius said, the Pontifex Maximus bound them all by the most solemn oaths to abide by the conditions of their covenant, and the agreement they made was this:]

“Now we get to the heart of the matter,” I said.

“Stop commenting and read!” Julia said, obviously in a state of considerable agitation, which I humored.

[To begin, since Caesar must be away in Spain for his propraetorship, and would not be in Rome to moderate between the other two, they were to comport themselves as friendly colleagues in his absence. Upon his return, their three-man coalition would begin to work in earnest to further the ambitions of all three. In token of his support, Crassus was to stand surety for Caesar’s debts so that Caesar could leave Rome to assume his magistracy. Pompey required, apparently in fulfillment of an earlier, less formal agreement, that the other two be seen prominently in his triumph so that all might know that he enjoyed their wholehearted support.

Caesar’s reward was to be a Consulship upon his return from Spain, and following it an extraordinary magistracy over all of Gaul. All would work to secure Crassus the war with Parthia that he desires. Pompey was to have whatever command he desires aside from Gaul and Parthia.

Since these projects would require that all three be absent from Rome for extended periods, Clodius was to be their representative in the city. They would support his suit for transferral to plebeian status, and thereafter support his campaign for the tribuneship. As tribune, he would introduce laws in furtherance of their own ambitions. As popular leader, he would reign as virtual uncrowned king of the city, and they would protect him from action by the Senate. Pompey, regarding himself as the greatest of the three, insisted that Faustus Sulla act as the colleague of Clodius to assure that Pompey’s interests were properly looked after in his absence. Although reluctant, Clodius assented. With these agreements made, the meeting broke up.

As they were leaving, Clodius went into the main part of the house to spy on the Mysteries, although Pompey tried to restrain him. When he was detected, the others made their way out amid the ensuing uproar.

Clodius related all this in highest humor, apparently expecting that I would admire his cunning. Horrified, I asked him, What of the constitution? What of the Senate? Scornfully, he said that the Senate was an outdated pack of nonentities and the constitution was what the strongest man said it was.