He paused, gathering strength to go on. "Was I the one who changed? Or was it Caesar? Don't misunderstand me; he's still the greatest man I've ever encountered in this world. His intellect, his courage, his insight-he towers above the rest of us like a colossus. And yet…"
He fell silent for a long moment, then finally shrugged. "It's me. I've simply lost my stomach for it. I've seen too much blood, too much suffering. There's a dream I have over and over, about a little village in Gaul, a tiny place, utterly insignificant compared to Rome or Alexandria, but not so insignificant that it could be ignored when it raised a challenge to Caesar. We circled the village and took them by surprise. There was a battle, quite short and simple as battles go. We slaughtered every man who dared to take up arms against us. Those who surrendered we put in chains. Then we rousted the women and children and the old people from their homes, and we burned the whole village to the ground. To set an example, you see. The survivors were sold as slaves, probably to other Gauls. That was how it worked in Gaul. Surrender and become a Roman subject; oppose us and become a slave. 'One must always give them a clear, simple choice,' Caesar told me. 'You are with Rome or against Rome; there is no middle ground.'
"But when I dream about that village, it's the face of one particular child I see, a little boy too young to fight, almost too young to understand what was happening. His father had been killed in the battle; his mother was mad with grief. The little boy didn't cry at all; he simply watched the house he'd grown up in as it was eaten by flames. To judge from the workshop attached to the house, the boy's father had been a smith. The boy would probably have grown up to be a smith, too, with a wife and children and a life in the village. But instead, he saw his father die and he was taken from his mother, to become a slave for the rest of his life. Whatever money his new master paid for him went to fund more campaigns against more villages in Gaul, so that more boys like him could be enslaved. In my dream, I see his face, blank and staring, with the light of the flames in his eyes.
"His village wasn't destroyed out of simple spite, of course. All that was done in Gaul was done for a greater purpose; so Caesar always told me. He has a grand vision. The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar; but for that to happen, certain things must happen first. Gaul had to be pacified and brought under Rome's sway; and so it was done. When the Senate of Rome turned against Caesar, the senators had to be run out of Rome, and so it was done. When Pompey roused the opposition against Caesar, the opposition had to be destroyed; and so it was done. Now Caesar must decide what is to be done with Egypt, and who should rule it, and how best to bring it under his sway. And the glory of Caesar burns brighter than ever. I should be pleased, having done my part to bring all this about; but I have that dream, almost every night now. The fire burns, and the boy stares at the flames, numb with shock. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter that he was enslaved; Rome shall rule the world, and Caesar shall rule Rome, and to make that happen, that boy's enslavement was one tiny necessity in a great chain of necessities.
"But sometimes… sometimes I wake with a mad thought in my head: What if that boy's life mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's? What if I were offered a choice: to doom that boy to the misery of his fate, or to spare him, and by doing so, to wreck all Caesar's ambitions? I'm haunted by that thought-which is ridiculous! It's self-evident that Caesar matters infinitely more than that Gaulish boy; one stands poised to rule the world, and the other is a miserable slave, if he even still lives. Some men are great, others are insignificant, and it behooves those of us who are in-between to ally ourselves with the greatest and to despise the smallest. To even begin to imagine that the Gaulish boy matters as much as Caesar is to presume that some mystical quality resides in every man and makes his life equal to that of any other, and surely the lesson life teaches us is quite the opposite! In strength and intellect, men are anything but equal, and the gods lavish their attention on some more than on others. And yet…"
Meto bowed his head, and the rush of words came to a stop. I could see that his distress was genuine, and I was astounded at the course of his thoughts.
"Does Caesar ever harbor such doubts?"
Meto laughed bitterly. "Caesar never questions his good fortune. He loves the gods, and the gods love him. Triumph is its own vindication. So long as a man is triumphant, he need never question his methods or his aims. Once upon a time, that philosophy was enough for me, but now…" He shook his head. "Caesar forgets that old Greek word hubris."
It was my turn to laugh. "If Caesar hasn't provoked the gods' wrath before now, then surely-"
"But Caesar never presumed to imagine himself a god, before now."
I looked at him keenly. "What are you saying?"
"Ever since we set sail for Egypt, he's kept bringing it up, jokingly at first. 'These Ptolemies don't merely live like gods,' he'd say, 'they are gods; I must see how they put their divinity into practice.' But it's not a joke, is it? With Pompey gone, the Senate made irrelevant, and all the legions united under him, Caesar will need to think long and hard about what it means to rule like a king, whether he calls himself one or not. The example of Alexander doesn't give much guidance; he died too young. It's the Ptolemies who provide the model for a long and successful dynasty, even if their glory has lately dwindled to the two decadent specimens currently vying to run the country."
"You don't think much of King Ptolemy and his sister?"
"You saw that display by the queen tonight! She and her brother both seem to have the same idea: seduce the man to make an ally of the general."
I frowned. "Are you suggesting that young Ptolemy-" "Is completely smitten by Caesar. It's rather pathetic, actually. You should see the fawning way he behaves when the two of them are together-the way he looks at Caesar, the hero worship in his eyes!"
I nodded, recalling Ptolemy's reaction when I told him that Cleopatra was alone with Caesar. "I suppose Caesar must be immune to that sort of thing, having received the adulation of so many young men over the years." Including a copious dose from you, Meto, I thought.
Meto scowled. "You might think so, but with Ptolemy, it's different somehow. Caesar seems equally fascinated by him. His face lights up when Ptolemy comes into the room. They put their heads together, share private jokes, laugh, and give each other knowing glances. I can't understand it. It's certainly not because the boy's beautiful. He and his sister are both rather plain, if you ask me." He snorted. "Now we shall have both of them buzzing around him, like flies around a honey pot!"
I considered this revelation. If true, It wouldn't be the first time that Caesar had engaged in a royal romance. His erotic exploits as a young man in the court of King Nicomedes of Bithynia had become the stuff of legend, inspiring vicious gossip among his political rivals and ribald marching songs among Caesar's own men. (Their insatiable imperator was "every woman's husband and every man's husband," according to one refrain.) In the case of King Nicomedes, Caesar had been the younger paramour, and presumably the receptive partner (hence the resulting scandal and the soldiers' teasing, since a Roman male is never supposed to submit to another man, only to play the dominant role). With Caesar and Ptolemy, the roles presumably would be reversed, with Caesar the older, more worldly partner and Ptolemy the wide-eyed youth hungry for experience.