“And?” said Antonius, fidgeting like a boy.
Caesar laughed. “Patience, Antonius! Patience! The custard course is on its way. We shall be enjoying tender bits of fowl and pork in an egg custard spiced with garum—isn’t that right, Lepidus? Lepidus has one of the finest cooks on the Palatine—”
“Commander, please!”
“Very well, the custard will have to wait.” Caesar cleared his throat. “I suppose I should stand up for this, and all of you should reach for your cups. My good friends: Tomorrow, Caesar shall put forward a request to the Senate—and the Senate, I feel certain, will consent.” This elicited mild laughter. “Caesar shall request a new command. The specific purpose of this command will be a military campaign against…Antonius, you look fit to burst.” There was more laughter, until at last Caesar said the word they were waiting to hear: “Parthia!”
“Parthia!” they shouted, raising their cups.
So the rumor was true, thought Lucius, draining his cup with the rest. His great-uncle, not satisfied to have mastered the whole of the Mediterranean world, had set his sights on yet another conquest: the land of the ancient Persians, which, since its conquest by Alexander, had become the kingdom of Parthia.
In all the known world, Parthia was the only power that could possibly rival Roma. When Lucius was nine years old, a man named Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was famous for putting down the great slave revolt led by Spartacus, led a Roman army to engage the Parthians, using Syria as his base of operations. Crassus had been the richest man in Roma and the political equal of Pompeius and Caesar; for a while the three of them formed the so-called Triumvirate, which temporarily stabilized the rivalry between them even as each plotted for a greater share of power. Crassus’s bid for fortune had been his invasion of Parthia. He had hoped to accomplish there what Caesar was already accomplishing in Gaul, reaping wealth and glory—except that the fabulous spoils of Parthia would far exceed anything to be taken in Gaul.
Instead, Crassus met Nemesis. At the battle of Carrhae his army was surrounded and subjected to a relentless barrage of armor-piercing Parthian arrows. Leading a cavalry unit to try to break through the Parthian lines, Crassus’s son Publius was killed; his head was cut off and used to taunt his beleaguered father. After the loss of twenty thousand Roman soldiers and the capture of ten thousand more, the Parthians offered Crassus a truce, then betrayed him and killed him, and beheaded him as they had his son. The Parthians celebrated their triumph over the invading Romans with great pomp, and presented the head of the Crassus as a gift to their ally, the king of Armenia, who reputedly used it in a production of Euripides’ play The Bacchae. Crassus had hoped to be head of the world; instead, his head became a stage prop.
The shadow of Crassus’s defeat had haunted the Romans ever since. The Parthians loomed as the great, unconquered enemy to the east. Now that civil war had settled the power struggle within the fractured Republic, it seemed only natural that the master of Roma should turn his attention to Parthia.
“Let me say outright that the military prowess of the Parthians must not be discounted,” said Caesar. “But nor should it be overestimated. We must not be put off by the defeat of Crassus. To be candid, as a commander he was not the equal of any man here—and I include you, Lucius, untested as you are. As a junior officer, Crassus served Sulla well, but he was always overshadowed by Pompeius. True, he put down the slave revolt of Spartacus, but afterward the Senate refused to reward him with a triumph, and for good reason; it would have been unseemly for a Roman to celebrate a victory over an army of slaves. The Parthian campaign was Crassus’s desperate attempt to make his mark as a military man. He overreached.”
“Even so,” said Antonius, “if we’re taking on the Parthians, I intend to make sure my will is in order.” The grim joke was typical of his humor, especially when he was drinking.
Antonius’s remark was greeted by good-natured booing from the others, but Caesar dismissed their objections. “Antonius speaks wisely. My own will is kept safe by the Vestal virgins. A man must think ahead to the day when all that remains of him is his name. As long as men speak his name, his glory lives. As for worldly possessions, great or small, a man should take steps to see that they are disbursed as he sees fit.” Caesar glanced at Lucius, and then at Antonius, but the significance of his glances was hard to read.
What provisions might Caesar’s will contain? No one knew. Caesar was king in all but name, but he was a king with no clear heir. He had never acknowledged the son of Cleopatra as his own. Rumors attested that Marcus Junius Brutus, who had fought against Caesar and been pardoned by him, was Caesar’s bastard, but Caesar himself had never acknowledged the possibility. Caesar’s closest male relations were the offspring of his two sisters—his nephew Quintus Pedius, who had served him in Gaul, and his young grand-nephews, Gaius Octavius and Lucius Pinarius. Of the three, only Lucius was present at the dinner; the other two were away from Roma on military duties.
Antonius took note of their absence. “A pity that your other two nephews couldn’t be here tonight.”
“Yes. But all three shall have the opportunity to cover themselves with glory in the Parthian campaign. Quintus is already battle-tested. As for Gaius…” Caesar’s eyes lit up; he was very fond of Gaius Octavius. “He’s only eighteen, but full of spirit; he reminds me of myself at that age. Despite his misfortunes in the last year—illness and shipwreck—he managed to take part in the final push against the Pompeian remnants in Spain, and he acquitted himself well. He lost his father when he was only four. I, too, lost my father when I was young, so I’ve done my best to look after him. He’s not a bad orator, either.”
“He had the best possible teacher,” said Antonius.
Caesar shook his head. “Not I. It comes to him naturally. I still remember the eulogy he delivered at the funeral of his grandmother, when he was only twelve.”
“And what of this fellow?” said Antonius, smiling at Lucius. For a moment Lucius was afraid that the man would reach over and muss his hair, as if he were still a boy. Listening to Caesar praise his cousin Gaius made Lucius feel acutely aware of his own lack of accomplishments.
“Lucius is only beginning his career,” said Caesar. “But I have my eye on him. Parthia will give him the chance to show the world what he’s made of.”
“To the Parthian campaign, then!” said Lucius, impulsively seizing his cup and lifting it high.
“To the Parthian campaign!” said Antonius. He and the others joined the toast. Caesar nodded approvingly.
There was more food and more wine. The conversation shifted. Lepidus remarked on the fact that Caesar had seen fit to restore the statues of Sulla and of Pompeius, which had been pulled down and smashed by the mob in the wake of Caesar’s victory. Why had Caesar put his enemies back on their pedestals?
“Lepidus, you know that it has always been Caesar’s policy to show clemency; vindictiveness gains a man nothing in the long run. Sulla, despite his crimes, and Pompeius, despite his fatal mistakes, were both great Romans. They deserve to be remembered. And so, by Caesar’s order, the gilded statue of Sulla on horseback will soon be back on its pedestal near the Rostra. Already the statue of Pompeius has returned to its place of honor, in the assembly room at the theater Pompeius built on the Field of Mars. That’s where the Senate will meet tomorrow. The statue of Pompeius shall witness my request for the Parthian command.”
He took a bite of custard, and smiled. “It was good of Pompeius, to provide Roma with its first permanent theater. We shall remember him for that, if for nothing else. As for Sulla, he was a political dunce to give up his dictatorship. But if he hadn’t done so, where would Caesar be today?”