Chapter XVI #2
And I did want it, I realised. It was not that I had such a high opinion of my own abilities.
Rather, I had discovered over the course of my life that most other men were worse, and I feared what might happen if the state fell into their hands.
I was confident, if it came to it, that I could command the loyalty of the legions, and for as long as that remained true, I could rule.
And there were things I wanted to do – to avoid more wars if possible, and to build: to leave behind great construction projects in Rome and throughout the empire for the benefit of future generations.
If that meant giving up my marriage, then so be it.
Needless to say, I did not mention any of this. I merely added that I was Caesar’s to command in my marital affairs, as in all things.
Maecenas told me I was a great patriot. He had expected no less.
– And never forget I am your friend. If ever you need advice or support in confidence, you can always count on me.
He spurred his horse and rode on ahead to talk to Caesar, no doubt to relay what I had just said.
Because we were obliged to halt in the forums of most of the main towns so that Caesar could receive the acclamation of their grateful citizens, it took us nearly a month to reach Rome.
He wished to triumph and was keen to demonstrate his respect for the traditional law that a victorious general must wait outside the walls to be summoned. He therefore did not enter the city straight away, but retired to his uncle’s old estate on the Tiber to rest and make his preparations.
He had been awarded three triumphs by the Senate, to be staged on successive days, for his victories at Actium and in Egypt, and for our earlier campaign in Illyricum.
Before these, he proposed to attend the annual elections, which would be held in time-honoured fashion outside the city gates on the Field of Mars.
I sent a message ahead to Caecilia, telling her I wished to speak to her about a matter of importance.
I dreaded the encounter.
She had already guessed what I was coming to tell her. The house was quiet. She had made sure the girls were not at home. She received me formally, and I recounted my conversation with Caesar.
I did everything I could to soften the blow.
I told her that of course I would return her dowry, that she was still young and attractive and independently wealthy, that she would surely remarry, that she could keep the house for as long as she needed it, that we would see one another often and that the girls would continue to live with her.
Throughout my speech, she looked at the floor. When I had run out of things to say, she spoke quietly.
– I always knew that if it came to a choice between me and Caesar, you would choose him. That is the way it has been since the start.
Her tone was resigned. It would have been easier for me if she had been angry.
She asked if Claudia Marcella had been informed of the arrangement.
I said that I believed Caesar had written to her mother, Octavia.
– You have not spoken to her yourself?
– I have not seen her for years, not since she was a child.
– I see her often. She is twenty now, or thereabouts. Given her family connections, I was surprised she had never married. I often wondered if Caesar might be saving her for you. Now I know he was.
Her words took me aback. It offended my pride to think that he might have been secretly nursing this scheme for years, until the time was right to move me like a token in one of his board games. For a moment I almost resolved to confront him. But ambition and fear held me back.
When I said goodbye to Caecilia, she wished me well. Having arrived full of pity for her, I left with the uneasy feeling that it was she who pitied me.
The elections took place a few days later.
In the end, Caesar decided not to show himself to the people before he entered the city in triumph. He felt it would lessen the impact of his first public appearance in Rome for several years. He therefore stayed closeted on his estate and sent me to represent us both.
I stood beside the sheep pens on the Field of Mars, surrounded by soldiers in case of trouble, and watched the thousands of citizens file past, arranged in their centuries, to cast their votes for the city’s magistrates, as their ancestors had done for half a millennium.
It was a moving sight, even though the results for the consulship at least were preordained. Ours were the only names on the ballot.
I returned to Caesar to tell him he had been elected consul for the sixth time, and I for the second. He smiled to himself but did not look up from his correspondence.
– Now there’s a surprise.
The following week was devoted to his triumphs.
On the first morning, we assembled outside the city walls with two full legions drawn up in marching order, and at a signal from Caesar we moved towards the gate. As we approached, I could hear a noise emanating from beyond it, like the buzzing of a hornets’ nest.
He knew his triumphs would be keenly observed for clues as to how he intended to rule. He had therefore designed them carefully, as a public display of the ranking of his family.
Riding beside him in his chariot were his daughter, Julia, now a month short of her tenth birthday, together with Livia’s younger son, Drusus, who was nearly the same age.
On the left trace-horse drawing his chariot he put his stepson Tiberius, and on the right – generally reckoned the place of honour – Octavia’s son, his nephew Marcellus.
He positioned me directly behind, on foot.
I studied Marcellus with particular interest. Even at twelve, my future brother-in-law had an easy grace, and I reckoned then he must be the favourite to succeed Caesar, rather than the grim-faced Tiberius.
I knew Livia would not approve, and there could be trouble, and remembering the scene on election day, I felt a stab of nostalgia for the old Republic of my youth, which for all its faults was designed to prevent exactly this – the emergence of a royal family, with its inevitable intrigues.
As we passed through the gate, and the crowds got their first glimpse of Caesar and roared their approval, the noise hit our faces like the blast from a furnace, and I wondered what I had let myself in for.
That first triumph was to celebrate the victory in Illyricum, now five years in the past. On the second day, we reassembled to celebrate Actium.
This time, as I trudged behind Caesar and those assorted children and watched them bask in adulation for what was my achievement, I cannot pretend I was not resentful.
Why should I deny it, after all these years?
Would it have diminished Caesar’s glory in the smallest degree to have given me just one of his triumphs?
Instead, that walk to the Temple of Jupiter felt like a kind of humiliation.
I could not shake off the sensation that I was a captive being paraded behind his conqueror.
The onlookers warmly applauded me. A few even shouted out that the day should have been mine.
But I pretended not to hear, and continued walking with a measured tread, my gaze fixed firmly in front, on the arses of Caesar’s horses.
The third day was devoted to the conquest of Egypt, and this was the greatest spectacle of them all – wagonloads of Cleopatra’s treasure, a tableau depicting her suicide, prisoners in chains, and those wretched children of hers that Caesar had permitted to live, unlike Caesarion – her twins by Antony and their six-year-old son.
All were paraded past the cheering Romans.
As I had played no part in the victory, I did not take part in this final procession but watched it from the crowd.
Caesar wasted no time in consolidating his power.
He had returned from Egypt so laden with gold he was able to announce to an immense crowd in the Forum that he would give every male Roman, man and boy, a bounty of four hundred sesterces – which in those days, for the average citizen, amounted to around half a year’s pay.
The legionaries would each receive a thousand.
The doors of the Temple of Janus, always left open in time of war, were for the first time in decades officially closed in a great ceremony of national thanksgiving.
Rome was finally at peace.
Having settled matters with the people and the army, he turned his attention to the Senate.
At the start of our joint consulship, he burned all Antony’s correspondence and promised there would be no retribution for past disloyalty.
He and I were appointed censors, with the power to reconstruct the Senate.
Two hundred names were removed from the roll and replaced by men who owed everything to him.
To prevent insurrection in the provinces, no senator was allowed to leave Italy without his permission.
Those who were expelled from the Senate went quietly.
He doubled the pay of his Praetorian Guard and stationed two thousand of them in the city for his protection, and another two thousand outside Rome to be summoned in case of a serious threat. They were not needed.
The only questions that remained to be settled were his formal title and the legal extent of his powers.
In the midst of all this, I married Claudia Marcella.
As her uncle, and the head of the family, Caesar again took charge of the arrangements. The ceremony was held in his house, which was filled with his relations.
I went alone.
I had known most of the guests for many years. But it is one thing to observe a family from the outside and another thing to join it.