Read Online Caesar by Colleen McCullough - Free Book Online Page B

your steel. That's why she died, of course. Brutus picked Claudia for his wife for one reason. That Picentine upstart Pompeius Magnus was dickering with Appius Claudius to get the girl for his own son, Gnaeus. Who might be half Mucius Scaevola, but doesn't show it in either his face or his nature. He's Pompeius Magnus without the mind. Probably pulls the wings off flies. It appealed to Brutus to steal a bride off the man who had stolen his bride from him. He did it too. Appius Claudius not being Caesar. A shoddy consul and no doubt next year a particularly venal governor for poor Cilicia. He weighed the size of my Brutus's fortune and his impeccable ancestry against Pompeius Magnus's clout and the fact that Pompeius's younger boy, Sextus, is the one who's likely to go farthest, and the scales came down in Brutus's favor. Whereupon Pompeius Magnus had one of those famous temper tantrums. How did Julia deal with them? You could hear the bellows and screeches all over Rome.
    Appius then did a very clever thing. He offered Pompeius Magnus his next girl, Claudilla, for Gnaeus. Not yet seventeen, but the Pompeii have never been averse to cradle-snatching. So everybody wound up happy. Appius got two sons-in-law worth as much as the Treasury, two horribly plain and colorless girls got eminent husbands, and Brutus won his little war against the First Man in Rome.
    He's off to Cilicia with his father-in-law, this year they hope, though the Senate is being sticky about granting Appius Claudius leave to go to his province early. Appius responded by informing the Conscript Fathers that he'd go without a lex curiata if he had to, but go he would. The final decision has not yet been made, though my revolting half brother Cato is yammering about special privileges being extended to patricians. You did me no good turn there, Caesar, when you took Julia off my son. He's been as thick as syrup with Uncle Cato ever since. I can't bear the way Cato gloats over me because my son listens more to him these days than he does to me.
    He's such a hypocrite, Cato. Always prating about the Republic and the mos maiorum and the degeneracy of the old ruling class, yet he can always find a reason why what he wants is a Right Act. The most beautiful thing about having a philosophy, it seems to me, is that it enables its owner to find extenuating circumstances for his own conduct in all situations. Look at his divorcing Marcia. They say every man has a price. I believe that. I also believe that senile old Hortensius coughed up Cato's price. As for Philippus—well, he's an Epicure, and the price of infinite pleasure comes high.
    Speaking of Philippus, I had dinner there a few afternoons ago. It's just as well your niece, Atia, is not a loose woman. Her stepson, young Philippus—a very handsome and well-set-up fellow!—gazed at her all through dinner the way a bull gazes at the cow on the other side of the fence. Oh, she noticed, but she pretended she didn't. The young man will get no encouragement from her. I just hope Philippus doesn't notice. Otherwise the cozy nest Atia has found herself will go up in flames. She produced the only occupant of her affections for my inspection after the meal was over. Her son, Gaius Octavius. Your great-nephew, he must be. Aged exactly nine—it was his birthday. An amazing child, I have to admit it. Oh, if my Brutus had looked like that, Julia would never have consented to marry Pompeius Magnus! The boy's beauty quite took my breath away. And so Julian! If you said he was your son, everybody would believe it. Not that he's very like you, feature by feature, just that he has— I really don't know how to describe it. There is something of you about him. On his inside rather than his outside. I was pleased to see, however, that little Gaius Octavius is not utterly perfect. His ears stick out. I told Atia to keep his hair a trifle on the long side.
    And that is all. I do not intend to offer you my condolences for the death of