with him. Unfortunately, this extra weight, packed into his round face and stubby nose had only served to further pinch his nasal speech. And it did nothing at all to diminish the inevitable, indelicate whispers of porcine disrespect.
“I’m sorry Julia is not here today,” Tertulla said. “Is she unwell?”
Pompeius leaned across Crassus. “On the contrary. She is feeling poorly, but only because…”
“Oh!” Tertulla said, taking the consul’s hand across her husband’s lap. “Joyful news!”
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Pompeius said. “Julia told me this morning. I am destroyed that she cannot be here to share this moment. This is going to be the best day of all.”
The arranged marriage of Caesar’s daughter to Pompeius, his fourth and second-to-last, had been born of political need, but despite their difference in age, there was true affection between them which only grew over time. His love for Julia would make Pompeius a laughingstock, but the old general cared not a fig for their jokes and jealousies. Destiny, however, would be unkind, and their union would end tragically. In only three months, violence would erupt at the elections for the aedile magistrates. Several people would be killed. Pompeius would intervene unsuccessfully, and in his attempt to separate the parties, would be spattered by blood. His servants would bring him a fresh toga, returning the stained garment to his home. There, Julia would chance to see it. She would become so upset at the sight of it, thinking her husband had been wounded or worse, that she would faint. Landing badly on the hard floor, a few days later she would lose the child. Livia’s and Julia’s pregnancies must have begun only weeks apart, and we would weep to hear of her sorrow. The following year, she would recover well enough to try again, but she was such a frail creature. She would die in childbirth, and her daughter, seeking the arms of her mother, would follow her to the underworld only a few days later.
I tell you this, not in order to inundate you with yet more tragedy, with which these scrolls already drip, but to make you understand that as this marriage began with politics, so it ended. Julia was one of only two tenuous threads holding the alliance between Pompeius, Caesar and dominus together. With Crassus on his way to Syria, the once-tight ball of power that bound these three would be well on its way to unraveling.
•••
Pompeius was a child with a new toy. Unlike most children, myself included, he at least was willing to share. A dozen horn blowers took the stage and sounded a fanfare, while behind them, workers folded the segmented purple curtain and pulled it aside. “You must excuse me,” Pompeius said, getting to his feet, his smile plumping his cheeks to the size of ruddy apricots. “The people want to hear from me.”
Tertulla leaned over to her husband and as the crowd quieted I caught her saying, “Doesn’t he have that the wrong way around?”
I will not bore you with Pompeius’ opening speech. It was just another litany of his accomplishments, which the crowd acknowledged politely but with only modest enthusiasm. I have always held that lists of one’s triumphs sound considerably more grand and are more likely to be cheered when they are spewed from someone else’s mouth. Even if true, when self-touted, achievements are by some arcane mystery less likely to be believed. Humility is the best braggart.
Other than the grain contracts, Pompeius’ victories had grown stale with age. This encouraged my master, who became even more convinced the time was right to bring a new province home to the Roman masses, thereby undercutting Caesar’s lesser contributions in Gaul. If the rumors of Parthian riches were true, Gaul would seem a paltry conquest by comparison.
The morning was filled with music and gymnastic competitions. When the great tragedian Clodius Aesopus took the stage, the raucous applause multiplied with such amplitude in the acoustically perfect bowl of the amphitheater that I was obliged to hold my hands to my ears. After several soliloquies, the aged actor spied his old friend, Cicero, and called upon him to ascend the stage. While this galled both consuls, there was little to be done about it without appearing ungenerous—they were forced to endure an unscheduled performance by the orator. Cicero, like Aesopus, never missed an opportunity to perform, but he was gracious and blessedly brief, congratulating both Pompeius and Crassus (which visibly annoyed the former) before taking his seat once again.
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