The Horse Changer Page 8

  Not content to run his ship aground with the plebs, Octavian summoned the senate to convene before him. He let it be known he intended to ask for a vote that would name Antony and Dolabella enemies of Rome. To Octavian’s chagrin, the senators stayed home. Within a day of the rebuff Octavian’s officers mutinied and withdrew their forces from the city. Octavian had no choice but to follow his army out of the city, looking to all and sundry like a young whelp with his tail tucked between his legs.

  Antony now rallied for a counter-assault, returning to the city with a great show of confidence. Nor did he proceed as a rank amateur by leading armed soldiers into the city. He covered himself only with a few friends and of course a consul’s escort of lictors. And when he summoned the senate, the old men gathered like cattle to a feeding trough.

  As a standing consul Antony was legally entitled to call the senate together, and after the recent occupation of the Forum, the senators were undoubtedly in the mood to declare Octavian an enemy of Rome. On the appointed morning, however, the senate sat without Antony. He had made a late night of it celebrating his revived fortunes. He only fell into bed an hour or so before the senate gathered. When his slaves awakened him in a panic, he threatened them with their lives. Knowing their master to be a man of his word the slaves let Antony return to his slumbers. And so Octavian was never officially declared a public enemy.

  Was the fate of Rome really subject to an awful hangover? I am not wise enough to know the answer to that. What I can say with confidence is this: a vote to designate Octavian an enemy of Rome would not have influenced the legions supporting his cause. Perhaps Antony knew this and never planned on attending the meeting. Perhaps, deep in his cups, he finally understood the absurdity of voting. Only a battle was going to settle the issue. Perhaps his debauch was an eloquent answer to Cicero. Yes, he was an outrageous drunk, but he was also a general of considerable talent who was about to become Rome’s new tyrant. Complain as men might, vote as they would, there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

  With Antony, all intentions were possible at once or none at all. He followed impulse and despised discourse and counsel. He hated discussing how others might react to any given action. It was not that he was stupid; rather he was impatient with lesser mortals. Whatever he chose to do was generally best. Who cared what his enemies planned?

  At any rate, once Antony had recovered from his hangover, he travelled to Macedonia and took command of the legions there, though their number was now greatly reduced because of Octavian’s poaching. Antony then crossed back to Italy with his army and marched north into the province of Cisalpine Gaul. This was the same province from which Caesar had launched his attack on Rome. He was a few months early for his proconsul appointment and in the wrong province as well, but no matter. He ousted the sitting governor, an assassin named Junius Decimus, and proceeded to recruit Gauls by the thousands for the coming fight against the boy who called himself Caesar.

  VII

  THE WILD BOAR

  In theory, Dolabella had sixteen legions waiting for him in Macedonia. In fact, Octavian, having absconded with the Macedonian army’s payroll, soon brought more than half of these legions under his own standards. Except for two legions, Antony took the rest. That left Dolabella scrambling for auxiliaries.

  I played no real role in any of Dolabella’s exchanges with the men of the senate that summer, but he brought me to several of his meetings. Observing Dolabella’s negotiations turned out to be something of an education in how serpents dance. It was usually never a question of a willingness to provide Dolabella assistance; the issue always came down to price, but of course no one ever spoke of quid pro quo. An aristocrat would simply begin talking about a piece of property Dolabella’s family owned or a house in a fine neighbourhood by the sea he had always wanted to purchase.

  Fighting men were at a premium and no one cared to give away what could be sold. Some men wanted political office; some few wanted a priesthood. Others sought a position of command for a son or nephew or younger brother. But the strangest quid pro quo came at the house of the Claudii.

  Campania, Italy: Autumn, 44 BC

  In his youth, elected a military tribune of the legions, Tiberius Claudius Nero rode under the standards of Pompey Magnus. Following this, Nero served as a legate in Gaul under Caesar. Caesar later appointed him admiral of his fleet in Egypt. A sparkling military career, in other words. Nero’s influence in the senate was a different matter. For the sake of his fortune and noble bloodlines Nero’s peers endured him patiently. They even praised him on occasion, but no one ever turned to him for advice. According to Dolabella, who quoted his good friend Gaius Trebonius on the matter, ‘Claudius Nero was the dullest blade in an armoury of rusty swords.’

  One had only to examine his performance as a military commander in detail to understand just how dull Nero really was. In Gaul, his only accomplishment was to be trapped and then rescued by Caesar. As Admiral of the Fleet in Egypt, he lost all of Caesar’s ships without ever leaving Alexandria’s harbour. Along with the fleet some portion of the great Alexandrian library burned as well. No blame ever accrued to the noble Claudius Nero, of course. Such mishaps are the fortunes of war. In the aftermath of the Egyptian debacle, once Nero had paid lavishly for the honour, Caesar let him stand as high priest of some temple or another. Dolabella forgot which it was and I never had the curiosity to look it up in the state archives.

  Although Dolabella was too clever to quarrel with Nero the two men had no fondness for each other. Nero in fact had spoken out openly against Dolabella’s sexual immorality, which is to say he disapproved of Dolabella’s mixing with the lower classes. It is, after all, one thing for a Roman senator to tup his boy slaves, if that is his inclination. It is quite another matter to let actors and gladiators climb on.

  Through much of the summer Dolabella had avoided Nero chiefly because he expected his visit would be a waste of time, but by autumn, resting at his estate in Campania for a few weeks, Dolabella found himself still in short supply of competent cavalry. If Nero wanted to cooperate, he could provide Dolabella with five hundred Spartan horsemen of the finest reputation. It was not an essential visit, but once he learned that Nero was in Campania as well, Dolabella decided it would not hurt to spend a few days courting the great man for the sake of the finest cavalrymen in Greece. In the worst case, he could expect to eat and drink quite well; Nero was rather famous for the spreads he put on. In the best circumstances, Nero might actually deliver the needed cavalry for the promise of a praetorship.

  I expected Dolabella to pull his claws in and present only his best manners. That was the kind of behaviour I had witnessed all summer, but my patron had a real genius for divining moral depravity. With Nero he came charging in with the sort of wickedness he generally reserved for his transvestite and gladiator friends.

  Nero was a good two decades older than Dolabella, in his late-forties or perhaps early fifties. That seems a vigorous age to me these days. At the time, he appeared to be a veritable ancient, all the more so once I discovered his new bride was an adolescent cousin from some branch of the far-flung Claudii gens. Nero was a tall man with thick, flabby limbs and a great gut. He had a long wobbly neck topped by a solemn square face that might have been carved of stone for all the animation it demonstrated. He generally wore a grim, pasty expression that never quite seemed sociable. He was slow moving and slow thinking, a man of extreme gravitas without so much as a spark of wit to make it bearable. Dolabella announced he had come to his ‘old friend’ hoping they might ‘crack cups, get drunk, and throw up together.’

  Nero reacted to this banter exactly as a man does who’s been slapped and doesn’t know what to do about it. Nor did Dolabella give the poor dolt a chance to respond. He dropped names the moment he arrived, choosing from among the nobility he had courted that summer. He disparaged and sniggered at their pompous airs and middling fortunes, a bleating flock of hypocrites, the whole bunch of them. It was blasphemy and slan
der to Nero’s ears; it was also delicious gossip. Soon enough Nero was drinking it down in gulps. To give Dolabella his due: not a word of his chatter was untrue.

  ‘A fine villa,’ Dolabella said of one senator’s country estate, ‘even if it is mortgaged to the hilt with three different lenders. Better hope they don’t find out about each other. Oh, I mean it’s a perfect fraud: up to his ears in it with other people’s money.’

  Of another: ‘Besotted with one of his own slaves. A pretty boy, no doubt of that, but I mean, really. When the master plays wife to his own slave it’s not going to end well.’

  Of one senator’s wife Dolabella said, ‘I tell you, friend, I’ve seen prettier horses.’ This comment was part of Dolabella’s rant against men who married ugly women. Nero’s bride was not only sweet and unspoiled, she was gorgeous. I say this without exaggeration and with no argument from any man living in those days. All who met Claudia Livia Drusilla found her small stature and round, sweet face the very essence of sensuality. One can find a well-formed body and a pretty face at every bend in the road. It’s the distinguishing feature of youth. They are babbling brooks of delights, soon enough enjoyed and forgotten. But there are some young girls with a sensuality that smoulders for decades in a man’s memory.

  Such was Livia’s power. Rather than pretend he did not appreciate her delicious beauty, Dolabella declared he could only respect a man who married a beautiful woman. By that standard he put Claudius Nero above all other men in the senate. Nor did Dolabella offer the usual formulaic praise for a good wife, nonsense muttered about docility and homemaking skills with a passing reference to her stature and self-possession. No, he was mad for the girl’s pert round arse, and he made sure to let Nero watch him drool for it.

  ‘So many men marry old crones for the sake of their fortunes these days. Even our hero of the Republic, Mark Antony. Fulvia!’ Dolabella shuddered as if chilled by a sudden winter frost. ‘Castrate me if I am ever so hard-up for money. Not my friend Nero. No second leavings for his marriage bed. But tell me, friend, do you intend to trade her off for another cousin once she’s twenty and gone to the dogs or will you keep her on a bit longer out of sentiment?’

  Nero had no idea how to answer such talk. I don’t think anyone had ever confided in him about anything, least of all women. Certainly not in those terms. No matter. Dolabella could talk enough for both of them. He loved young girls. Not exclusively of course but well enough that if Livia had a sister looking for a husband he was freshly divorced and in the market.

  In private, quite certain Nero’s spies were listening, Dolabella declared he envied Nero as much for the little filly he mounted and rode each night as for the fortune his family possessed. ‘What I wouldn’t give for one night with that delicious cunny, Dellius. One time. By the gods, one time! I’ll wager when a man plunges into her, she sizzles!’

  ‘Tell me, Nero,’ Dolabella whispered at dinner one evening, ‘did Livia weep on her wedding night? You lucky bastard! I bet she did. Is she still the bashful girl in bed or mad for the old thyrsus now she knows what it’s all about?’

  Another time he said, ‘If you’re not happy with her, I’ll take her off your hands. I’ll be glad to pay you for the trouble of finding another wife.’

  ‘How much would you give for her?’ Nero asked.

  It was a strange, cold question. I think he was joking, but who could tell with that dour soul? Dolabella laughed, all in good fun. ‘I’d make you king of Rome if you gave me an hour with Livia.’

  ‘I’ll have my coronation before I agree to it.’

  ‘What surprises me,’ Dolabella remarked one evening when the two men were deep in their cups, ‘is that you haven’t thought to take hold of your colleagues and shake them like the spoiled brats they are.’ Nero could imagine a crown on his head or at least joke about it; he could not fathom how he might bully his colleagues. They intimidated him, much as Dolabella did.

  ‘I don’t mean you ought to bother about them; they’re frankly not worth the trouble, but what a good many of them need is a sword in the guts, and for the rest the threat of it. By the gods, we need to cull out the bankrupts and banish every man who’s married to an ugly woman!’

  ‘My husband is too kind for that sort of thing,’ Livia answered. She was supervising the slaves as they served us, quietly listening to Dolabella’s rant. She spoke up, I believe, because her husband was too shocked to say anything.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Dolabella answered cheerfully. ‘Here we have Rome’s last hope, and he’s too decent to do what is necessary.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s quite decency that stops me,’ Nero muttered.

  A slave came to the villa one afternoon, this on the third or fourth day of our visit. He informed Nero that one of the estate’s herdsmen had spotted a wild boar in the mountains. Dolabella, overhearing the news, called at once for a hunt. Blinking and nodding in response, Nero answered, ‘Yes, that would be the thing to do.’

  Dolabella suggested that Nero send invitations to the aristocracy and gentry of the neighbouring estates. By dawn next day we had gathered more than a dozen young men of quality. Most of the hunters were the sons of Roman nobility on holiday at their Campania estates. A few were indigenous gentry who knew the mountain trails well enough to lead the hunt.

  To the considerable surprise of all, Nero’s bride expected to be included. I recall Livia arriving at the stables just as we were all preparing to mount our horses. Nero asked her what she thought she was doing. ‘I’ve decided to join the hunt,’ she answered.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve taken me hunting before.’

  ‘A wild boar is considerably more dangerous than the game we’ve hunted. It isn’t safe for you.’

  ‘With all these armed men about? You have to be joking.’ To her slave, she said, ‘Fetch Artemis and be quick about it!’

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Nero told the fellow.

  ‘Go!’ the girl answered petulantly. The slave was naturally torn between commands: the refusal of either would get him a beating.

  Fortunately for the poor fellow, Dolabella inserted himself into Nero’s domestic affairs. Dolabella of course cared nothing about the fate of a slave; he simply loved scandal of every hue and thought to nurture this one in its infancy. ‘Let her ride with us, Nero,’ he said. ‘Dellius will keep her safe.’ He turned to me. ‘Won’t you, Dellius?’

  I knew better than to complain of losing my chance at riding in the vanguard and answered my patron crisply. ‘On my life!’

  ‘You see? On his life. She will be perfectly safe.’

  I expect Nero knew he had been turned into a laughing stock. All the same, he relented, for he dearly loved that girl. Let the neighbours make their jokes; nothing is as sweet in life as a happy wife. Of course, at the time, I was astonished that a senator of Rome would submit to a mere child. I had no respect for the old fellow. In my bachelor’s ignorance I believed a man must never submit to the whims of a woman, especially if she happened also to be his wife. Time has softened my opinion considerably. When I was Nero’s age, somewhere in my fifties, and about the business of my second marriage, I did not let my new bride hunt wild boar with the young gentry of our neighbourhood, but like Nero I spoiled her at every turn. Those who make us happy we learn to indulge. It is partly our sentiment for their sweet compliance and partly a desire to give them a life that is kinder than the one we have endured.

  At any rate, Livia was athlete enough to ride with the men, a better athlete than most, if truth were told. Nero knew this and was not worried about her tiring or falling from her horse. He did, however, take the precaution of keeping his wife from danger by sending all but Dolabella and me ahead. With luck we could hope to join up in time for the kill, but there would be no adventuring at the front of the chase.

  For her part, Livia appeared to agree to Nero’s conditions until her mare was brought out and saddled. By then the rest of the hunters were a mile or
so up the mountain. When Artemis bowed down to allow Livia to mount, she took her seat and brought the mare up quickly, kicking her flanks as she did. Nero called her back, for all the good it did. Livia departed at a full gallop, and nothing was going to turn her back. Still on the ground and having no chance of catching her anyway, Nero looked at me angrily. ‘Your life, Dellius, if anything happens to her!’

  The land around Nero’s estate was wooded, hilly and wild. Livia knew every ridge and ravine from her morning rides and soon left the trail by which the hunters had ascended the mountain. Her path was more direct and thereby more treacherous. There were jumps over logs and ditches. Then there were the breakneck descents, which I took at a gallop for the sake of keeping up with her. The fog that shrouded Rome that summer had covered all Campania as well; if anything the air was thicker and more foul.

  Before long I found myself utterly alone. I knew Livia had gone off trail to lose me. Realising that there can be no pleasure in such a game if one is unavailable to be laughed at, I turned back and headed down the mountain. Soon enough Livia came ambling out of her hiding place. She began at once to tease me about my equestrian talents: ‘I’m not sure you are the fellow I care to have guarding me. You can barely keep up.’

  ‘Have you ever encountered a wild boar, Lady?’ I asked.

  ‘They are no longer common in Campania.’

  ‘They are still plentiful in Tuscany, where I grew up. I’ve hunted enough of them to tell you when you find one you had better not be alone.’

  ‘You have your spear and sword. Where is the danger?’

  ‘They charge whatever frightens them. Even a mortal wound will not take them to ground at once, and with tusks as long as your arms they can impale you before they even know they are hurt.’