Venus in Pearls(2)

"Nonsense. I have a job for you, and you may frown and pout all you like while you carry it out."

"What sort of job?" I asked, resigned.

"A crime."

"Commit one or solve one?"

"Don't try my patience, Decius. The breastplate of pearls I gave to Venus has disappeared. I want you to find and retrieve it in time for my triumph."

"Pearls, Caesar?" I sighed.

"I'm afraid so." He grew conciliatory and put an arm around my shoulders. Presumably this semi-divine familiarity was supposed to reduce my humiliation. "Listen, Decius, I am fully aware that you are an ex-praetor qualified for high command and fit to govern an important province, and you shall do so soon. But," he gave my shoulders a comforting little squeeze, "your family's recent hostility toward me went beyond the merely politic. I can't very well shower you with honors before I've had a chance to properly reward my faithful supporters. Just be patient, and you'll soon be restored to the full honors of your birth and station. In the meantime, kindly go and find my pearls."

"Where were they last seen, Caesar?"

"Among my triumphal trophies. An image of the goddess will wear them at the head of the procession on the first day. You know where to look."

Indeed I did. The whole city knew of the preparations for Caesar's triumph. Since his return from Spain, where he had crushed Pompey's sons at Munda earlier that year, Caesar had been gathering the staggering loot to be displayed in his triumph in a field near the Circus Flaminius on the Field of Mars.

I took my leave of him and made my way thither. It wasn't a long walk. The senate was meeting that day in the Curia attached to Pompey's theater, which was handy to the Flaminius. This was because the ancient Curia Hostilia in the Forum was still in ruins, burned in the riots that followed the death of Clodius seven years previously. Also, it was customary for a general to remain outside the city proper until the day of his triumph. As dictator, Caesar could have dispensed with this ancient taboo, but he felt that as Pontifex Maximus he should observe it.

Perhaps these then-famous pearls deserve some explanation because the manner of their acquisition was so peculiar. When, in the course of his Gallic war, Caesar invaded the island of Britannia, his stated reason was to secure freshwater pearls, a product of that island, to make a breastplate for Venus Genetrix, the ancestress of his house. This was perhaps the silliest reason ever given for starting a war. I do not think we need to regard it seriously.

He did, however, get his pearls because he always got what he wanted, or at least that was what he claimed. Over whether they were truly freshwater pearls from Britannia there was some dispute. Some speculated that they might be common pearls from the East.

Not that pearls of any sort were exactly common. And about this time Romans had conceived a veritable passion for pearls. People paid the most extravagant sums for them. Caesar gave one said to be worth six million sesterces to Servilia, mother of his future assassin, Brutus.

The triumphal preparations covered a vast area, much of it protected by the largest awnings ever seen in Rome, even greater than the one that shaded the audience at the Circus Maximus. The whole area was guarded by a full legion of Caesar's veterans, another little reminder, were one needed, of who was master in Rome.

I was well known to Caesar's men, so they passed me through without difficulty. Beyond the guards were acres of loot: gold and silver in every form imaginable, from crowns to cooking pots, gems, precious woods, woven goods of all sorts, sculpture, painting, beautiful captives of both sexes, incredibly detailed models of cities and forts Caesar had taken, exotic animals, entire trees with their limbs trimmed and hung with arms and armor as trophies, images of all the state gods to be borne at the head of the procession, images of enemy gods to be borne in chains behind them, captives like their conquered worshippers.

As in everything else, Caesar intended that his triumph should outshine anything ever seen before. This one would stretch on for days and would commemorate his conquests in Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa. His most recent victories would not be acknowledged; there would be no trophies to celebrate his defeat of Pompey and his supporters. It was forbidden to celebrate a triumph for the defeat of Roman citizens.

A little asking led me to a tent stitched with gold thread and surrounded by protective herms. Before its entrance, incense burned on a small altar of finely wrought bronze. I passed within and found the interior illuminated by that ghostly glow that comes of sunlight passing through cloth, this time faintly tinged with gold. In the center stood the image of the goddess, now covered by a cloth of Tyrian purple—this pall alone worth a good-sized country estate.