The Sacrilege(78)
Understanding that I was involved in a treasonous conspiracy to overthrow the state, I fled the house of Clodius. I found lodgings in a small tavern and spent all the next day and all of this fearing that, sober, Clodius will understand that he said far too much to me and will seek me out. All his men know me by sight, and I dare do nothing until after dark. I have written this letter, which I propose to affix to the door of your house. Then I shall flee Rome and never return. It is now dark, and I shall leave my lodgings as soon as I seal the message tube. Do with these words as you see fit. The Senate must take action. Long live Rome.]
“That poor boy!” Julia said when I had finished reading.
“Yes,” I agreed, “he was guilty of no more than bad company and owning a wretched prose style. But he has given me exactly what I need.”
“How will you use this?” she asked.
“With this,” I said, holding the letter aloft, “I can bring them all down. First, it will hold them all up to ridicule, as undoubtedly Clodius intended when he concocted this bizarre plan. Can you imagine it? The great conqueror, the richest man in the world and the very Pontifex Maximus all skulking about the city dressed as women! They could never survive the ridicule! Even more important, though, is the fact that Pompey was there at all.”
“What do you mean?” Julia asked.
“He entered the city, crossing the pomerium. At that instant he laid down his imperium and forfeited his right to celebrate a triumph!”
“I don’t understand,” Julia said. “The Senate had already granted him permission for his triumph.”
“It makes no difference. They could have given him permission a year ago, when he was still in Asia. No Roman with imperium may enter the city save as triumphator on the day of his triumph. This will be a humiliation he cannot endure.”
“I don’t believe it!” Julia said, jumping to her feet. “Caius Julius is not a traitor, and he would have no part in such a loathsome conspiracy!”
“Julia,” I said, holding the scroll before her face, “do you really think that naive boy made all this up?”
“No, of course not,” she said, relenting a little. “But Clodius might have. We all know what a villain he is. Pompey and Crassus, of course, but Clodius may have added Caesar’s name to make his scheme sound greater than it is.”
“Julia, I know that Caesar was not in Celer’s house that night, and all Rome knows that Clodius was discovered in the house of Caesar. He was there.”
She wrung her hands, seeking any way she could to extricate her uncle from treasonous charges. “But even Clodius said that he enjoined the other two to do nothing while he is away from Rome. Perhaps he just meant to keep them from committing civil mischief in his absence.”
“Perhaps you are right,” I said, knowing that she was not. Because it had come to me, while reading the letter, that every bit of this scheme was Caesar’s doing. Oh, maybe the business of dressing as women had been Clodius’s, it was the sort of madcap whimsy that would appeal to him, but the rest was Caesar’s. Tricking Pompey into crossing the pomerium before his triumph put him, the most powerful of the three, firmly into the grasp of the other conspirators. That was Caesar’s brand of subtlety. Getting Crassus to stand surety for his debts neatly accomplished a number of his ends at one stroke, another favorite technique of his.
Most of all, though, Caesar had tied the two most powerful men in the world to him, had solved his own debt problems, assured that Rome would be tranquil in his absence, secured a Consulship upon his return and a rich province to govern afterward and even his co-conspirators’ patronage for his flunky Clodius. And he had accomplished all this while providing absolutely nothing of his own. This was another quality of Caesar’s with which I was familiar. He could persuade men to give him what he wanted as if he were doing them a favor. It seemed that now he wanted to be given the world, just for being Caesar.
For I had no doubt of what this signified. These three men (Clodius and Faustus did not count) had met in conspiracy to divide the world among them. And over bullheaded, overgrown juvenile thugs like Pompey and Crassus, Caesar would rule, shining like a god. Caesar was an actor, and this was the ultimate actor’s role. If the Senate allowed this to happen, the Senate would deserve whatever might befall it.
“I shall make this public,” I vowed. “I shall take this before the Senate and People, and I shall bring them down.”
“Excuse me, master,” Hermes said, “but do you really expect to live that long?”