Three's Company Read online

  Nevertheless, on a working day the praetors must preside in their lawcourts. On the 16th of January they were still new to the duties they had taken up at the beginning of the month, still full of zeal to display their knowledge of law and the equity of their minds. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, urban praetor, presided over the most important civil court in Rome; it would be shameful if he declined to sit merely because the City was disturbed. An hour after sunrise he had taken his seat in his official ivory chair; there he remained, muffled in an ample toga against the wintry wind which swept through the open portico, until an hour after midday. The custom of the ancestors demanded this display of public duty, and anyway there was nothing else he could do until the situation was a little more clear. But the only causes brought before him were two undefended suits for small debts, and for two hours he sat there with no business to occupy him. No one was going to open an important or intricate case when in a few days there might be no law in Rome, or indeed anywhere else in the civilized world.

  All the same, it was very pleasant to be sitting in the curule chair, Lepidus the praetor, third magistrate in the most powerful City on earth. What made it all the more gratifying was that he had won this great position by his own merit. Of course it would be very odd if the head of the Aemilii Lepidi were passed over for public office; but his father had died a public enemy, an outlaw in arms against his City. That had taken some living down. Yet respectable manners, noble birth, and genuine ability will always be recognized, in the face of every handicap. Here he was, praetor at the age of 40; soon there would be another Lepidus Consul, and when he died his image would take its proper place at the end of the long line of Lepidan Consuls which filled the shelf behind the family altar.

  An hour after midday the court might fittingly adjourn. He stood to intone the ritual prayer, carefully pronouncing the obsolete words in the archaic, patrician mode. For several centuries the gods had endured with patience the ignorant gabblings of plebeian magistrates, but it was just as well to remind them from time to time that the welfare of Rome was in the hands of the gens Aemilia, who knew how they should be placated. He took three measured paces to the right of his chair, the lucky side, and saluted with a formal gesture the spirit of fair-dealing which dwelled in the hallowed ivory; the spirit whose presence he could feel as he sat, rising through his buttocks to inspire his mind with equity. Then he stood as still as a statue while a servant adjusted his toga into the correct folds for walking, his clerks formed up behind him and the two lictors of a praetor took their places six feet ahead, their fasces sloped over their shoulders. At a snap of his fingers the procession moved off; not in the military quick-step affected by sloppy young magistrates straight out of the army, but in the slow swinging stride appropriate to a ruler who had been entrusted with a share of the divine favour which guards Rome. Even now it gave him a thrill to see the lictors going before him; though that was no more than his due, as head of the house of Lepidus.

  He went first to inquire whether the Senate were still in session. Three years ago rioting Clodians had burned down the Senate House (what was the world coming to!) and the City since then had been so disturbed that no one had repaired it; the Senate met in any handy temple or public building that was big enough, but most often in the vestibule of the Theatre of Pompeius. He tried that first, and was told to his annoyance that the Fathers had met there earlier in the day, and had already adjourned; they should have waited until the urban praetor had closed his court. Even in these exciting times he would look undignified if he loitered in the Forum to hear the news; so there was nothing for it but to go home. If the Senators had reached any important decision they would of course send a messenger to inform him.

  Still in silence and with measured tread the little procession marched to the Aemilian mansion. Its doors stood open, and the lictors swept straight in; to stand at attention while the praetor, as head of the house, poured wine before the statue of the presiding Lar. The custom of his ancestors laid down that Lepidus should sacrifice to his Lar twice a day, at dawn and noon; but ancestral custom also decreed that the urban praetor should hold court until the first hour of the afternoon. Marcus would not dream of slighting the gods by sending an underling to sacrifice while he was absent on duty, it was better to keep the Lar waiting, and then apologize for the delay. He was proud of the apology he had composed, in terms so archaic that King Numa would have understood them.

  Then the lictors melted away towards the kitchen. They were free men and citizens, who had walked before many other praetors and next January would walk before his successor. On parade they had an air, but once they had been stood down it was best to get them quickly out of the way before they became cheeky. The clerks were his own clients, most of them freedmen who had once been his slaves; they took a more ceremonious farewell, bending the knee to kiss his hand. A valet advanced to remove the official toga, and with a shrug of the shoulders and a sagging of the neck Aemilius the praetor became Marcus Lepidus the eminent patrician, at leisure in his own house.

  He told the servants that he would dine alone with his lady, and as soon as possible. After his valet had sponged his face and hands he went through the hall to the drawing-room beyond, where the lady Junia sat with her maids, dozing over her embroidery. As her husband entered she rose and sketched the gesture of kissing his hand; but of course he interrupted to embrace her, as he had done at every meeting since they were married. Good manners demanded that she should offer him this reverence, but good manners demanded equally that he should refuse it.

  The lady Junia was five years younger than her lord, and remarkably good-looking. But then Marcus Lepidus was also handsome in a heavy way, with regular features, a straight back, wide shoulders, and the beginning of a paunch. They had been betrothed in childhood at the command of their parents, to cement a political alliance; but neither had ever fallen passionately in love with anyone else, and long years of partnership and propinquity had brought affection. They were pleased to be alone together, with half the day before them.

  ‘What’s the news?’ asked Junia. Of course she did; every woman was asking that as her man came home, all over the City.

  ‘Nothing definite, my dear,’ Marcus answered. ‘Caesar has taken Ariminum. He still marches south with his single legion. Ahenobarbus is levying recruits in Picenum. At any hour now we ought to hear of the first engagement, but so far there seems to have been no contact.’

  ‘That was what they were saying at dawn. News of battle travels fast. If they had fought yesterday we should have heard. Perhaps after all someone will fix up a compromise. Did anyone make a proposal for peace in the Senate?’

  ‘I don’t know how the debate went in the Senate. They had already adjourned when my court rose. On my way home I called to inquire, and all I could find out was the bare fact of adjournment.’

  ‘Then no one had a reasonable proposal If there was a hope of peace someone would tell the urban praetor, even if he had to interrupt when you were giving judgment. Today was our last chance; tomorrow the swords will be drawn. Little Marcus will be eight next birthday. Can you remember Sulla’s proscription? Would they hunt down an eight-year-old?’

  ‘In Sulla’s time they did. And blood-feuds grow fiercer with the years. But why should anyone want to proscribe my son? I have been elected praetor with the support of the Optimates who control the City; my father died for the Popular cause. Three years ago I defied the Clodian gangs, and that ought to earn me the gratitude of every respectable householder in Rome. We are not committed to either faction. And, when all’s said and done, I am Aemilius Lepidus.’

  ‘That won’t help little Marcus. When once the fighting has started ties of kinship are forgotten. Look at Caesar himself. I’ve often heard him tell how when Sulla ruled the City he had to go into hiding, for all that his mother was an Aurelia, kin to Sulla’s most eminent supporters. Poor Caesar! I saw a lot of him when I was a child, and he was always so gay and amiable; it was exciting just to
be in the same room with him. I suppose I shall never see him again. A public enemy, marching with one legion against Pompeius and all the might of Rome! I hope he gets himself killed in battle, so that we can remember him as a gallant warrior. It’s horrible to think that he may be executed as a traitor, or more likely die of hardship in some squalid barbarian refuge.’

  ‘My eldest brother fell in his first battle, in the Campus Martius out there. A swordpoint in the throat, a gentleman’s death. He may have been a Scipio by adoption, but he charged like a Lepidus.’

  Marcus was always touchy when anyone referred, even obliquely, to his father’s end. He knew that every Optimate remembered the old Consul as a desperate rebel and public enemy, while to every Popular he was a half-hearted leader who had despaired too soon. It was difficult to defend his memory from such opposite reproaches.

  ‘But the weary round of bloodshed and vengeance may not begin again, my dear,’ he went on. ‘You talk as though Caesar were a foolhardy daredevil. He’s not. In Gaul he may have conquered savages, as any civilized army can beat savages; at heart he‘s a wily politician, more at home in the Forum than on the battlefield. It’s ten years since I met him, or since anyone else met him either, I mean met him properly, at a dinner-party or in his place in the Senate. But he can’t suddenly have changed his entire nature, even in the frosts of Gaul. He wouldn’t be marching through Picenum at the head of a solitary legion unless he had some private contact with Pompeius. In a few days the two of them will meet quietly, bring in some solid statesman to make a third in place of Crassus, and publish their terms of peace. Then we shall have a competent administration, strong enough to keep the mob in order.’

  ‘Let’s hope you are right, my dear,’ said Junia soothingly. She knew that when her husband was explaining high politics in terms simple enough for the female understanding anything I except instant agreement exasperated him beyond all bearing. ‘It’s time someone kept the mob in order. I can hear them hooting outside at this very minute. I suppose they have recognized some unpopular magistrate.’

  Marcus smiled briefly in appreciation of the pun. The mob usually shouted for the Populars, and most Optimates were at present very unpopular indeed. ‘Then you no longer fear for little Marcus?’ he went on in a kindly tone. ‘All Rome remembers the proscriptions. Such horrors can never be done again. We magistrates are busy every day, and we work to make the world safe for Marcus and his schoolfellows. That’s enough of politics. I hear the butler coming to announce dinner.’

  The butler entered the drawing-room; but instead of standing by the door to announce that dinner was served he came right up and leaned over his master, murmuring confidentially to the top of his head. ‘A gentleman has called to see you, my lord, on most urgent and private business. He will not give his name, and he was carried into the hall in a curtained litter. His litter-bearers are those who usually carry Pompeius Maximus.’

  ‘We must postpone dinner, my dear. A praetor’s time belongs to the City. Hylas, have the gentleman carried in his litter right into my private office. Tell him I shall be there as soon as I have put on my toga. Let’s see. Have we a footman who doesn’t understand Latin? Anyway, get one of the barbarian servants to bring in a bowl of wine, and put a guard on the office door. If this gentleman wants his interview to be private we shall show him that the Aemilian mansion can offer him privacy.’

  ‘That’s just how I would expect old Pompeius to arrange a secret meeting; to come here in broad daylight, in the most famous litter in Rome,’ Junia muttered to herself as her husband bustled out. She spoke too low to be overheard. A praetor’s work seemed to be very boring, and it would be a shame to spoil her husband’s pleasure in this intrigue.

  Half an hour later Marcus was back, his eyes popping with excitement.

  ‘You were quite right, my dear,’ were his first words; and Junia knew that he must be very excited indeed. ‘Yes, you were right. Civil war has come again. The proscription of Sulla was very terrible, but then at least the foes of Rome were themselves Romans. Now we face war to the knife, war without quarter. The City lies defenceless before a barbarian army. Sack and bloodshed, rape and pillage, our shrines profaned, the tombs of our ancestors rifled, the Gauls once more in the Forum!’

  ‘Merciful gods, will he make a speech at me? They banged so much rhetoric into his head when he was a child that now when he’s excited he can’t tell a straightforward story,’ thought Junia. While her husband stood, his arm thrust out, drawing breath for another outburst of lamentation, she cut in with a sharp question.

  ‘What did Pompeius tell you? And what are you, the urban praetor, going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I got carried away. But what Pompeius had to say was really very startling. By the way, how did you know it was Pompeius? He came secretly, in a closed litter. Never mind. The great Pompeius honours my roof, and I can’t boast about it to my friends. Just my luck. Well, this is what he told me. He has no regular troops in Italy except the two legions passing through from Gaul for the Parthian war. Those legions have just left Caesar’s command, and they can’t be trusted to fight against him. Of course no one expected Caesar to march in January; Pompeius was counting on another three months to train his recruits. Those recruits are coming in very willingly. At this very minute Ahenobarbus has thirty cohorts of them in Picenum. But so far they aren’t even organized into legions; they must be drilled before they can stand in the line of battle. So there’s nothing for it, and this is the terrible news, but for the whole government to leave Rome. Pompeius himself goes to Capua tomorrow; the magistrates and Senators, with their families, follow on the next day. We have thirty-six hours to pack our plate and money, and your jewels. Of course it will be impossible to hire wagons, with all Rome in flight. We must abandon the furniture and most of our clothes, as plunder for the Caesarians.’

  ‘Why should the Caesarians plunder it? They can’t take tripods and dinner tables with them on campaign.’

  ‘They will plunder because they are Caesarians, extreme Populars, the dregs of the City. Caesar won’t try to control them. In Gaul he has shown himself utterly merciless. He has wiped out whole tribes of barbarians, men, women, and children. He boasted about it in his letters to the Senate.’

  ‘That isn’t the Caesar I remember in mother’s boudoir. Among savages he may have been a savage, in Rome he will behave like a Roman. But wait a minute, Marcus. Who has ordered you to leave?’

  ‘Pompeius himself. Gnaeus Pompeius Maximus. I told you.’

  ‘This is January, Marcus. Since the beginning of the year you have been urban praetor.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.… Oh, I see what you mean.’ The last words were spoken low, as Marcus sat down in a comfortable chair to think.

  Pompeius was a very great man. Three years ago he had been for a few months sole Consul, an office unknown to the constitution but a public recognition of the fact that he was the greatest man in the City. All the same, by the letter of the law Pompeius was merely a Consular, a Senator who had in the past held the Consulship. That gave him no right to issue orders to magistrates.

  ‘Certainly he ordered me to leave, he was not just giving advice,’ Marcus went on. ‘But the Senate has commissioned him to preserve the peace in Italy, and they have voted the Ultimate Decree. Anyway, whatever the legal position, he has the power of the sword.’

  ‘The Ultimate Decree!’ said Junia with explosive scorn. ‘What did your father, or mine, think of the Ultimate Decree? How did your grandfather value it, Saturninus the tribune who was murdered by sacrilegious Optimates? Every true Roman who has studied the laws knows that the Senate has no power to declare martial law without the assent of the people.… And if Pompeius truly had the power of the sword he would not be getting ready to scuttle out of Rome before a blow has been struck.’

  ‘Pompeius can kill me this evening, if I defy him. His troops outside the City are only undrilled recruits, but there are no other soldiers within a hundred mil
es of us. Besides, it is still much too early to take a public stand. We just don’t know enough about who will win. So far there has been no fighting, and an hour ago I thought the whole thing would be arranged peacefully at another personal consultation between the leaders. Suppose I join Caesar just in time to see the rout of his solitary legion? You know I don’t fear death for myself, but it would be the downfall of the house of Aemilius Lepidus. If I obey orders and leave Rome I do only what everyone is doing. Caesar won’t hold that against me. Later, when the position is clearer, I can still join the Populars if they seem to stand a chance. I won’t destroy my family by taking part in a hopeless escapade.’

  Junia admitted to herself that Marcus did not fear death; considering his ancestry and his education it would have been odd if he did. But he was afraid of so many other things, the public opinion of his equals, the hatred of the mob, the displeasure of the gods, poverty, disgrace, insignificance, that in effect he often reasoned like a coward.

  ‘I want Caesar to win. What do you want to happen?’ was all her answer.

  ‘I don’t know, really. It would be best if Caesar and Pompeius made another agreement, but I suppose that is crying for the moon. If they must fight it out, well, look at it this way. Every gentleman of good family, nearly the whole of the Senate, practically everyone who has ever dined here or whom you would meet in a drawing-room, they all support Pompeius. Then look at the gang who support Caesar; those Antonius brothers, Curio, Quintus Cassius. I wouldn’t trust one of them alone with a virgin or a silver spoon. Of course our good old Popular cause must triumph in the end. The people are stronger than the nobility. But this is not the time for war, perhaps for another proscription. Just because the people must win in the end the nobles will give way gracefully at the last moment. Remember, there was a time when we patricians were the only true citizens of Rome; we made room for your plebeian ancestors, my dear, because the welfare of the City demanded it. And now we live in harmony together.’