Antony and Cleopatra (19 page)

“He won’t be present, Antonius,” Pollio said, eyes fixed on Plancus, rolling his eyes skyward. “I have a far better scheme. Agree to it, and I’ll go as your representative.”

“You?” Antony asked incredulously. “
You?
”

“Yes, I! Antonius, I’ve been consul for eight and a half months, yet I haven’t been able to go to Rome to don my consular regalia,” Pollio said, exasperated. “As consul, I outrank Gaius Maecenas and a paltry Nerva combined! Do you really think I’d let a weasel like Maecenas dupe me? Do you?”

“I suppose not,” Antony said, beginning to yield. “All right, I’ll agree to it. With some conditions.”

“Name them.”

“That I am free to enter Italia
through Brundisium
, and that you be permitted to go to Rome to assume your consulship without any impediments put in your way. That I retain my right to recruit troops in Italia. And that the exiles be allowed to go home immediately.”

“I don’t think any of those conditions will be a problem,” said Pollio. “Sit down and write, Antonius.”

Odd, thought Pollio as he rode down the Via Minucia toward Brundisium, that I always manage to be where the great decisions are made. I was with Caesar—Divus Julius, indeed!—when he crossed the Rubicon, and on that river isle in Italian Gaul when Antonius, Octavianus, and Lepidus agreed to divide up the world. Now I’ll be presiding over the next momentous occasion—Maecenas is not a fool, he won’t object to my assuming the chair. What extraordinary luck for a writer of modern history!

Though his Sabine family had not been prominent until his advent, Pollio owned an intellect formidable enough to have made him one of Caesar’s favorites. A good soldier and a better commander, he had advanced with Caesar after Caesar became Dictator, and never had had any doubt where his loyalties lay until after Caesar was murdered. Too pragmatic and unromantic to side with Caesar’s heir, he had only one man left to whom to hew—Marcus Antonius. Like many of his peers, he found the eighteen-year-old Gaius Octavius farcical, couldn’t begin to fathom what a peerless man like Caesar could see in such a pretty boy. He believed too that Caesar hadn’t expected to die so soon—he was as tough as an old army boot—and that Octavius had been a temporary heir, just a ploy to exclude Antony until he could judge whether Antony would settle down. Also see what time would make of the mama’s boy who now denied his mama’s existence. Then Fate and Fortuna had exacted the ultimate penalty from Caesar, allowed a group of embittered, jealous, shortsighted men to murder him. How Pollio rued that, despite his ability to chronicle contemporary events with detachment and impartiality. The trouble was that at the time Pollio had no idea what Caesar Octavianus would make of his unexpected rise to prominence. How could any man foresee the steel and gall inside an inexperienced youth? Caesar, he had long realized, was the only one who had seen what Gaius Octavius was made of. But even when Pollio had come to understand what lay within Octavian, it was already too late for a man of honor to follow him. Antonius was not the better man, he was simply the alternative that pride permitted. Despite his failings—and they were many—at least Antony was a
man
.

As little as he knew Octavian did Pollio know his principal ambassador, Gaius Maecenas. In all physical respects Pollio was a medium man: height, size, coloring, facial appeal. Like most such, particularly when high intelligence was a part of the package, he mistrusted those who were definitely not medium men in any respect. Had Octavianus not been so vain (boots with three-inch soles, for pity’s sake!) and pretty, he would have fared better in Pollio’s estimation right after Caesar’s assassination. And so it was with Maecenas, plump and plain of face, pop-eyed, rich, and spoiled. Maecenas simpered, steepled his fingers, pursed up his lips, looked amused when there was nothing to be amused about. A poseur. Detestable or annoying characteristics. Yet he had volunteered to treat with this poseur because he knew that once Antony simmered down, he would choose Quintus Dellius as his delegate. That could not be allowed to happen; Dellius was too venal and hungry for such delicate negotiations. It was possible that Maecenas was equally venal and hungry, but as far as Pollio could see, Octavianus hadn’t made many mistakes when he selected his inner circle. Salvidienus was a mistake, but his days were numbered. Greed always antagonized Antony, who would feel no compunction at striking Salvidienus down as soon as his usefulness was at an end. But Maecenas had made no overtures, and he did own one quality Pollio admired: he loved literature and was the enthusiastic patron of several promising poets, including Horace and Virgil, the best versifiers since Catullus. Only that inspired any hope in Pollio that a conclusion satisfying both parties could be reached. But how was he, a plain soldier, going to survive the kind of food and drink a connoisseur like Maecenas was bound to provide?

“I hope you don’t mind ordinary food and well-watered wine?” Maecenas asked Pollio the moment he arrived at the surprisingly modest house on Brundisium’s outskirts.

“Thank you, I prefer it,” Pollio said.

“No, thank
you
, Pollio. May I say before we get down to our real business that I enjoy your prose? I don’t tell you that in a spirit of sycophancy because I doubt you’re susceptible to the fine art of sucking up, I tell you because it’s the truth.”

Embarrassed, Pollio passed the compliment off tactfully but lightly by turning to greet the third member of the team, Lucius Cocceius Nerva. Neutral? How could such a neutral man be anything else? No wonder his wife ruled him.

Over a dinner of eggs, salads, chicken, and crunchy fresh bread, Pollio found himself liking Maecenas, who seemed to have read everybody from Homer to Latin luminaries like Caesar and Fabius Pictor. If there was one thing lacking in any army camp, he reflected, it was an in-depth conversation about literature.

“Of course Virgil is Hellenistic in style, but then, so was Catullus—oh, what a poet!” said Maecenas with a sigh. “I have a theory, you know.”

“What?”

“That the most lyrical exponents of poetry or prose all have some Gallic blood. Either they come from Italian Gaul or their ancestors did. The Celtae are a lyrical people. Musical too.”

“I agree,” said Pollio, relieved to find no sweeties on the menu. “Leaving aside
‘Iter’
—a remarkable poem!—Caesar is typically unpoetical. Exquisite Latin, yet bald and spare. Aulus Hirtius had been with him long enough to do a fair imitation of his style in the commentaries Caesar didn’t live to write, but they lack the master’s deftness. However, Hirtius does give some things away that Caesar never would have. Like what drove Titus Labienus to defect to Pompeius Magnus after the Rubicon.”

“Never a boring writer, though.” Maecenas giggled. “Ye gods, what a bore Cato the Censor is! Like being forced to listen to the maiden speech of a political hopeful mounting the rostra.”

They laughed together, at ease with each other, while Nerva the Neuter, as Maecenas had named him, dozed gently.

On the morrow they got down to business, in a rather bleak room furnished with a large table, two wooden chairs with backs but no arms, and an ivory curule chair. Seeing it, Pollio blinked.

“It’s yours,” said Maecenas, taking a wooden chair and directing Nerva to the other, which faced it. “I know you haven’t assumed it yet, but your rank as junior consul of the year demands that you chair our meetings, and you should sit on ivory.”

A nice and very diplomatic touch, thought Pollio, seating himself at the head of the table.

“If you want a secretary present to take the minutes, I have a man,” Maecenas went on.

“No, no, we’ll do this alone,” Pollio said. “Nerva will act as secretary and take the minutes. Can you do shorthand, Nerva?”

“Thanks to Cicero, yes.” Looking pleased at having something to do, Nerva put a stack of blank Fannian paper under his right hand, chose a pen from among a dozen, and discovered that someone had thoughtfully dissolved a cake of ink.

“I’ll start by summarizing the situation,” Pollio said crisply. “Number one, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied that Caesar Octavianus is fulfilling his duties as a Triumvir. A, he has not ensured that the people of Italia are well-fed. B, he has not suppressed the piratical activities of Sextus Pompeius. C, he has not settled enough retired veterans on their portions of land. D, Italia’s merchants are suffering through hard times for business. E, Italian landowners are angry at the draconian measures he has adopted to separate them from their land in order to settle the veterans. F, more than a dozen towns throughout Italia have been illegally stripped of their public lands, again in order to settle veterans. G, he has raised taxes to an intolerable height. And H, he is filling the Senate with his own minions.

“Number two, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied at the way Caesar Octavianus has usurped the governance and legions of one of his provinces, Further Gaul. Both governance and legions are at the command of Marcus Antonius, who should have been notified of the death of Quintus Fufius Calenus, and allowed to appoint the new governor as well as dispose of Calenus’s eleven legions as he sees fit.

“Number three, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied at the waging of a civil war inside Italia. Why, he asks, did not Caesar Octavianus solve his difference of opinion with the late Lucius Antonius in a peaceful way?

“Number four, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied at being refused entry to Italia through Brundisium, its major Adriatic port, and doubts that Brundisium defied Italia’s resident Triumvir, Caesar Octavianus. Marcus Antonius believes that Caesar Octavianus issued orders to Brundisium to exclude his colleague, who is not only entitled to enter Italia, but also entitled to bring legions with him. How does Caesar Octavianus know that these legions have been imported for the purposes of war? They might as easily be going to retirement.

“Number five, Marcus Antonius is not satisfied that Caesar Octavianus is willing to allow him to recruit new troops inside Italia and Italian Gaul, as he is lawfully entitled to do.

“That is all,” Pollio concluded, having said every word of that without reference to notes.

Maecenas had listened impassively while Nerva scribbled away—to some effect, apparently, since Nerva didn’t ask Pollio to repeat any of what he had said.

“Caesar Octavianus has faced untold difficulties in Italia,” Maecenas said in a quiet, pleasant voice. “You will forgive me if I do not tabulate and enumerate in your own succinct style, Gnaeus Pollio. I am not governed by such merciless logic—my style inclines toward storytelling.

“When Caesar Octavianus became the Triumvir of Italia, the Islands, and the Spains, he found the Treasury empty. He had to confiscate or buy sufficient land upon which to settle over one hundred thousand retired veteran soldiers.
Two million iugera!
So he confiscated the public lands of the eighteen
municipia
that had supported Divus Julius’s killers—a fair and just decision. And whenever he acquired any money, he bought land from the proprietors of
latifundia
, on the premise that these individuals were behaving exploitatively by grazing vast areas once under the plough for wheat. No grower of grain was approached, for Caesar Octavianus planned to see a great increase in locally grown grain once these
latifundia
were split up as allotments for veterans.

“The relentless depradations of Sextus Pompeius had deprived Italia of wheat grown in Africa, Sicilia, and Sardinia. The Senate and People of Rome had grown lazy about the grain supply, assuming that Italia could always be fed on grain grown overseas. Whereas Sextus Pompeius has proved that a country relying on the importation of wheat is vulnerable, can be held to ransom. Caesar Octavianus doesn’t have the money or the ships to drive Sextus Pompeius off the high seas, nor to invade Sicilia, his base. For that reason he concluded a pact with Sextus Pompeius, even going as far as marrying Libo’s sister. If he has taxed, it is because he has no alternative. This year’s wheat is costing thirty sesterces the
modius
from Sextus Pompeius—wheat already bought and paid for by Rome! From somewhere Caesar Octavianus has to find forty million sesterces every month—imagine it! Nearly five hundred million sesterces a year! Paid to Sextus Pompeius, a common pirate!” cried Maecenas so earnestly that his face reflected a rare passion.

“More than eighteen thousand talents,” said Pollio thoughtfully. “And of course the next thing you’re going to say is that the silver mines of the Spains were just beginning to produce when King Bocchus invaded, so now they’re closed again and the Treasury beggared.”

“Precisely,” said Maecenas.

“Taking that as read, what happens next in your story?”

“Rome has been dividing up land on which to settle first the poor and then the veterans since the time of Tiberius Gracchus.”

“I’ve always thought,” Pollio interrupted, “that the worst sin of omission the Senate and People committed was to refuse to give Rome’s retiring veterans a pension over and above what’s banked for them out of their pay. When consulars like Catulus and Scaurus denied Gaius Marius’s propertyless Head Count soldiers a pension, Marius rewarded them with land in
his
name. That was sixty years ago, and ever since the veterans have looked to their commanders for reward, not to Rome herself. A terrible mistake. It gave the generals power they should never have been allowed to have.”

Maecenas smiled. “You’re telling my story for me, Pollio.”

“I beg your pardon, Maecenas. Continue, please.”

“Caesar Octavianus
cannot
free Italia from Sextus without help. He has begged that help from Marcus Antonius many times, but Marcus Antonius is either deaf or illiterate, for he doesn’t answer those letters. Then came internal war, a war that was
not
provoked in any way by Caesar Octavianus! He believes that the true instigator of Lucius Antonius’s rebellion—for so it seemed to those of us in Rome—was a freedman named Manius, in the clientele of Fulvia. Manius convinced Fulvia that Caesar Octavianus was—er—
stealing
Marcus Antonius’s birthright. A very strange accusation that she believed. In turn, she persuaded Lucius Antonius to use the legions he was recruiting on Marcus Antonius’s behalf and march on Rome. I don’t think it’s necessary to say any more on the subject, save to assure Marcus Antonius that his brother was not prosecuted, but allowed to assume his proconsular imperium and go to govern Further Spain.”