They finished the first circuit and ran back through the Forum, where an even larger crowd had gathered before the Rostra. People wanted to be present for the end of the run, and the public feast that would follow. As the runners passed the Rostra, Caesar remained seated on his throne but raised his arm in salute.
“Wait here for me,” said Antonius to Lucius. He broke from the pack and mounted the Rostra, taking giant steps. From somewhere—he had not been carrying it before—he produced a diadem made of gold and wrapped with laurel leaves. He held the diadem aloft so that everyone in the crowd could see. He knelt before Caesar, then rose and held the crown above Caesar’s head.
The crowd reacted with surprise. This was not a part of the ritual of Lupercalia. Some laughed, some cheered. A few dared to jeer and groan with disapproval. Caesar suppressed a smile. Managing to look very grave, he raised his hand and prevented Antonius from placing the crown on his head.
The crowd applauded and cheered. Caesar sat motionless. Only his eyes moved, scanning the crowd, closely observing their reaction. With his upraised hand, he made a dismissive gesture, indicating that Antonius should continue the run.
“What was that about?” said Lucius, when Antonius rejoined the pack.
In one hand Antonius still held the diadem, in the other his goat-hide thong. He shrugged. “The glare off your great-uncle’s bald spot was blinding me. I thought it needed something to cover it.”
“Marcus, be serious.”
“To a man of Caesar’s years, there is nothing more serious than a bald spot.”
“Marcus!”
But Antonius would say no more. He growled and howled and leaped toward a group of young women who screamed with excitement. Lucius followed him, anxious to regain the euphoria he had experienced during the first circuit.
When they ran through the Forum to make the second pass before the Rostra, the crowd had grown even larger. Again, Antonius broke away and ran onto the platform. Again, he displayed the diadem to the crowd. A number of people began to chant, “Crown him! Crown him!” Others chanted, “Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”
Like a mime on a stage, Antonius made a great show of trying to place the diadem on Caesar’s brow. Again, Caesar gently refused it, waving his hand as if to ward off a buzzing insect. The crowd’s reaction was even more enthusiastic than before. They cheered and stamped their feet.
Antonius withdrew and rejoined the pack.
“Marcus, what is going on?” said Lucius.
Antonius grunted. “Caesar is my commander. I was thinking that vulnerable bald spot could use a bit of strategic cover.”
“Marcus, this isn’t funny!”
Antonius shook his head and laughed. “There is nothing as funny as your great-uncle’s bald spot!” He would say no more.
They completed the third and final circuit. An immense crowd had gathered before the Rostra, made up not only of the pious and those who wished to take advantage of the feast, but of many others, for word of Caesar’s refusal of a crown had spread through the city. When Antonius mounted the Rostra, the competing chants were deafening.
“Crown him! Crown him!”
“Never a king, never a crown! Never a king, never a crown!”
A third time Antonius moved to place the diadem on Caesar’s head. A third time Caesar refused it.
The applause was thunderous.
Caesar rose to his feet. He raised his hands for silence. He took the diadem from Antonius and held it high above his head. The crowd watched in suspense. For a moment it appeared that Caesar might crown himself.
“Citizens!” he cried. “We Romans know only one king—Jupiter, king of the gods. Marcus Antonius, take back this diadem and carry it to the Temple of Jupiter. Offer it to the god on behalf of Gaius Julius Caesar and the people of Roma.”
The applause of the crowd was deafening. Caesar again raised his hands for silence. “I declare that the Lupercalia has been well and truly run. Let the feasting begin!”
Amid the surging throng, Lucius stood before the Rostra and looked up at his great-uncle. He did not know what to think of the performance he had just witnessed, nor what to make of the crowd’s reaction to it. It seemed to him that those who chanted “Crown him!” had cheered the loudest when Caesar refused the crown, as if the very act of rejecting the symbol entitled him to the power it represented. Those who had chanted “Never a king, never a crown!” had cheered as well; were they so foolish as to believe that because Caesar refused a diadem, he was not in fact their king? “In politics, appearance is everything,” Antonius had once told him. Still, it was all very confusing.
Lucius was also not sure what to make of Caesar. Every man, woman, and child in Roma seemed either to revere or despise the man with great intensity, but to Lucius, Caesar had always been Uncle Gaius, a bit larger than life, to be sure, yet all too human, with his preoccupied air, his combed-over hair, and his slightly absurd habit of speaking of himself in the third person. Caesar had loomed over Lucius all his life, yet he always seemed a bit distant and aloof. Indeed, whenever the two of them had been alone together, Lucius had sensed an uneasiness in his great-uncle’s manner. Sometimes Caesar averted his eyes rather than look Lucius in the face. Why was that?
A few times, Lucius’s father had made veiled references to a debt owed to the family by Caesar, but he had never explained. Lucius sensed that something tragic or shameful had occurred in the past, the sort of thing that grownups never discuss in front of children. He had an idea, though he could not say why, that it involved his grandparents, Julia and Lucius the Unlucky. What had Caesar done to them, or failed to do? Probably money was involved, or an insult to someone’s dignity, or both. Whatever the lapse or transgression, it was surely a very small matter when compared to the enslavement of Gaul or the carnage of the civil war. Still, Lucius was curious. Now that he was a man, would he be told what had happened in those mysterious, long-ago days before he was born?
A month later—on the day before the Ides of Martius—Lucius Pinarius attended a dinner party at the house of Marcus Lepidus on the Palatine. Lepidus had fought under Caesar and was now serving as the dictator’s Master of the Horse. Caesar himself was in attendance, as were Marcus Antonius and several other of Caesar’s most trusted officers.
Antonius drank more than anyone else. He showed no obvious signs of inebriation—his speech was not slurred, his gestures were controlled—but his eyes shone with a mischievous glimmer. “So, commander, what is this grand announcement you’ve assembled us to hear tonight?”
Caesar smiled. He had kept them in suspense through the fish course and the game course, but it seemed that Antonius would not submit to eating the custard course without hearing what Caesar had to say. “You become bored and impatient so quickly, Antonius. Well, I suppose I’ve become a bit bored myself lately. That’s why I asked Lepidus to invite this particular group for dinner. Some of you served me in Gaul, and saw the surrender of Vercingetorix. Some of you served me at Pharsalus, where we took down Pompeius. Some of you were in Alexandria, where we made peace among the bickering Egyptians, despite their treachery and their wiles. And some of you were at Thapsus, where Cato met his end. You’ve all been tested by battle—or you soon will be.” He smiled and glanced at Lucius. “You are a select band, the cream of Roma’s warriors. You are my most trusted men at arms. That’s why I wanted to meet with you all tonight, ahead of the official announcement I shall make tomorrow.”
“Yes!” whispered Antonius. “This is about—”
“Parthia,” said Caesar, who refused to let even Antonius utter the word before him. “I’ve reached my decision regarding the feasibility of an invasion of Parthia.”
There was a stir of movement around the room. Everyone knew what Caesar must be about to say, but the magnitude of it was so great that it could not seem entirely real until the words were actually said aloud.