As the triumvirate splintered, others, lower down the food chain, were engaged in desperate struggles of their own. At the beginning of April, Marcus Caelius was brought to trial. His colourful past did not bear close scrutiny. Certainly, the prosecution had no problem in alleging a vast range of vices and crimes, including – most shockingly of all – an assault on a deputation of ambassadors and the murder of its leader. What gave the trial its whiff of scandal, however, was a further charge: that Caelius had attempted to poison his lover, Clodia Metelli. Clearly the relationship had not been going well.
Not that the prosecutors ever even alluded to it. Because the details of the affair promised to be as damaging to Caelius as to Clodia, they had calculated that the defence team would be equally as discreet. But they had reckoned without Cicero. Relations with his old pupil had long been rocky, but the opportunity to launch a full-frontal assault on Clodia had been too good to miss. Rather than draw a veil over the affair, Cicero instead chose to make it the focus of his entire defence. ‘Suppose a woman who has lost herhusband throws her house open to every man who needs sexual release, and publicly lives the life of a prostitute, suppose she thinks nothing of going to parties given by total strangers, suppose she carries on like this in Rome, in her pleasure-gardens, and among the orgy-set at Baiae,’ he thundered, ‘then do you really think it would be scandalous and disgraceful for a young man such as Caelius to have picked her up?’1 Of course not! After all, she was only a streetwalker, and therefore fair game! The jurors, listening to Rome’s queen of chic being eviscerated in this manner, were titillated and appalled. What they failed to notice was that Cicero, by going after his enemy’s sister, had obscured all the really serious charges against his client beneath a froth of innuendo. The strategy proved to be gratifyingly successful: Caelius was acquitted. Cicero could purr with satisfaction at a hatchet-job well done.
So dazzling had the performance been that it quite put in the shade a speech delivered at the trial by Caelius’ other guardian. Not that this would have concerned Crassus. He had never been one for pyrotechnics. He had no need of them. His purpose in coming to Caelius’ rescue had been to protect his investment in the young man’s future; a goal duly achieved, and at minimal political cost to himself. True, he had been privy to the demolition of Clodia, but even Clodius, rarely reticent in defence of his family’s honour, knew better than to lash out at Crassus. Subtle and understated in his methods he may have been, a man of whispered hints and promises rather than open threats, yet he remained the most menacing figure in Rome. Now at last, in the spring of 56, Crassus was preparing to test just how far that menace would carry him. Even as he spoke at Caelius’ trial his mind was elsewhere. A political masterstroke was being prepared.
The previous month Crassus had travelled to Ravenna, a town just beyond the frontier of Roman Italy, inside Caesar’s province of Gaul. Two other power-brokers had been waiting there for him. One had been Caesar himself, the other Clodius’ haughty eldest brother, Appius Claudius. Following a secret conference between the three men Crassus had returned to Rome, while Appius, staying with Caesar, had headed west. In mid-April the two conspirators arrived in the frontier town of Lucca. So too, heading north from Rome, did Pompey. A second conference was held. Again, its precise terms remained mysterious, but news of the meeting itself had spread so quickly that Pompey, arriving for it, had been accompanied by two hundred senators. More than a hundred bundles offasces could be seen propped up in the Luccan streets. Senators on the make, their nostrils filled with the scent of power, scrabbled for advancement. To their more principled colleagues back in Rome, the clamouring of these aristocratic petitioners delivered an ominous message. Once again, authority appeared to be draining away from the Senate. Perhaps the triumvirate was not dead, after all?
And yet it seemed barely credible that Pompey and Crassus could have patched up an alliance a second time. What compact could they possibly have reached? And what of Caesar’s role in the murky business? What was he after now? One of the first to find out was Cicero. Chastened by his experience of exile, he no longer had any illusions that he could hold out against the combined might of the triumvirate. Against Clodius and Clodia, yes, but not against those who were infinitely his superior ‘in resources, armed force, and naked power’.2 When Pompey leaned on him he crumpled. Vulnerable and nervy, eloquent and respected, Cicero made a perfect tool. He was put to work straight away. That summer he had to stand up in the Senate House and propose that the provinces of Gaul, which Domitius Ahenobarbus had been eyeing so hopefully, remain Caesar’s, and his alone. Domitius, taken aback by this volte-face, exploded with fury. What was Cicero up to? Why was he arguing for something that he had once condemned as outrageous? Had he no shame? In private such questions left Cicero sick with misery. He knew that he was being exploited, and hated himself for it. In public, however, he paraded the ingenious argument that by changing sides he was in fact displaying statesmanship. ‘Standing rigid and unchanging has never been considered a great virtue in the Republic,’ he pointed out. Far from trimming, he was merely ‘moving with the times’.3
No one was much convinced – Cicero himself least of all. Maudlin with self-contempt, he tried to cheer himself up by indulging in the one constant he had been left, his blood-feud with Clodius. High on the Capitol, the bronze tablet celebrating his exile was still on public display. Accompanied by Milo, Cicero took it down, removed it and hid it in his house.* Clodius not only had the nerve to denounce him for unconstitutional behaviour, a complaint upheld by Cato at his most sententious, but also erected billboards on the Palatine advertising a long list of Cicero’s crimes. Even among the shifting sands of the Republic there were some things that never changed.
Yet even as their dog-fight twisted this way and that, the two men found themselves joined by more than mutual hatred. Appius had decided that it was time he became consul: hence his trips to Ravenna and Lucca to meet the triumvirs. In return for their backing in the elections for 54 he had offered them the support of himself and his youngest brother. For Pompey in particular, who had spent two years being harried and humiliated by Clodius, this was a rich prize indeed. The inimitable talents of Rome’s greatest rabble-rouser were now the triumvirs’ to do with as they pleased. Just as Cicero had been employed as the tool of Caesar’s interests, so Clodius was put to work serving those of Pompey and Crassus. Orders went out to his network of tribunes and gang-leaders. A campaign of intimidation was launched, its aim to secure the postponement of the consular elections for 55. The violence, as it tended to do whenever Clodius was involved, quickly escalated. A band of senators attempted to block his entry into the Senate House; Clodius’ supporters responded by threatening to burn the Senate House to the ground. Meanwhile, the elections had still not been held, and all the while Rome was filling with the triumvirs’ clients, including a great flood of Caesar’s veterans, given special leave from Gaul. Outraged senators put on mourning. Horrible suspicions crowded their minds. At last the question that had been buzzing around Rome for months was put openly to Pompey and Crassus, both of whom had been attempting, in their most statesmanlike manner, to stay above the fray. Were they planning to stand for the consulship of 55? Crassus, slippery as ever, answered that he would do whatever was best for the Republic, but Pompey, pinned down by insistent questioning, finally blurted out the truth. The carve-up that had enabled them to bury their rivalry stood revealed to the world.
Opposition was instantaneous and implacable. The two candidates were taken aback. Having postponed the elections in order to fill the city with Caesar’s veterans, they now began to panic that they might still not win. Midnight visits were paid to the homes of rival candidates. Muscles were flexed, arms twisted. Only Domitius refused to stand down. By now it was January. For the first weeks of 55 there had been no consuls at all, and elections could no longer be postponed. Hours before the voting pens opened, in the dead of night, Domitius and Cato attempted to stake a place on the Campus Martius. There they were surprised by armed thugs who killed their torchbearer, wounded Cato, and put their men to flight. The next day Pompey and Crassus duly secured their second joint consulship. Even now they had not finished with their election rigging. When Cato won a praetorship Pompey had the result declared void. The aedileships were shamelessly parcelled out to supporters; so much so, in fact, that the Campus erupted into fresh violence. This time Pompey was caught in the thick of it and his toga splashed with blood.
The sodden garment was taken back to his home, where his pregnant wife was waiting anxiously for news. When Julia saw the blood-caked toga she fainted with shock and her baby was lost. No one could be surprised that the sight of Pompey the Great spattered with the gore of his fellow citizens should have resulted in his wife’s miscarriage. By such signs did the gods make their judgements known. The Republic itself was being aborted. Cicero, writing in confidence to Atticus, joked miserably that the triumvirs’ notebooks were no doubt filled with ‘lists of future election results’.4 To their peers, the criminality of Pompey and Crassus was so naked as to appear sacrilegious. Whereas before, in 59, they had employed Caesar as their proxy, now it was they who were staining the sacred office of the consulship. And to what end? Surely they had already both won glory enough? Why, merely to secure the consulship for a second time, had they resorted to such violent and illegal extremes?
The answer was not long in coming, and even Pompey and Crassus had the grace to be embarrassed by it. When a tame tribune came forward with a bill that would give the consuls five-year commands in Syria and Spain the two men affected innocent surprise, but no one was fooled. The more closely the terms of the bill were inspected, the more dismaying they appeared. The two proconsuls were to have the right to levy troops, and declare war and peace, without reference to the Senate or the people. A separate bill awarded identical privileges to Caesar, confirming him in his command and extending it for a further five years. Between them, the three members of the syndicate would now have direct control of twenty legions and Rome’s most critical provinces. The city had often echoed to cries of ‘tyranny’ – but never, surely, with such justification as now.
From its earliest days the nightmare that its own ideals might turn against it had haunted the Republic. ‘It is disturbing’, Cicero reflected, ‘that it tends to be men of genius and brilliance who are consumed by the desire for endless magistracies and military commands, and by the lust for power and glory.’5 An ancient insight. The Romans had always appreciated that everything they found most splendid in a citizen might also be a source of danger. This explained why, over the centuries, so many limits upon the free play of ambition had evolved. Laws and customs, precedents and myths, these formed the fabric of the Republic. No citizen could afford to behave as though they did not exist. To do so was to risk downfall and eternal shame. Pompey and Crassus, true Romans, understood this in their blood. It was why Pompey could conquer by land and sea, and yet yearn for the respect of a man like Cato. It was why Crassus could be the most feared man in Rome, and yet choose to veil his power behind shadows. Now, however, their scruples were no longer sufficient to restrain them. After all, in order to win his second consulship, Pompey had almost had Cato killed. And Crassus, during the debate on his proconsular command, grew so heated that he punched a senator in the face.
Indeed, it was generally observed, in that summer of 55, just how excitable this formerly discreet man had become. Crassus had turned voluble and boastful. When he won the governorship of Syria by lot he could not stop talking about it. Even had he not been in his sixties such behaviour would have been regarded as unseemly. Suddenly, people were laughing at him behind his back. This had never happened before. The more that Crassus stepped into the full glare of unpopularity, the more his sinister mystique began tofade. He found himself being jostled by mobs, and even, on occasions, having to turn tail and beg Pompey for protection. With such humiliations did the Roman people punish Crassus for his betrayal of the Republic. When the time finally came for him to depart for his province no celebrations accompanied him, no cheering crowds. ‘What a villain he is!’6 Cicero exclaimed, gloating over the shabbiness of Crassus’ departure. But the lack of a rousing send-off was not the worst. As the proconsul clattered out through the city gates on to the Appian Way he found a tribune waiting for him by the side of the road. Earlier, the same man had attempted to arrest Crassus, a stunt contemptuously brushed aside. Now he was standing by a brazier. Clouds of incense rose from it, drifting across the tombs of ancient heroes, perfuming the winter breeze. Gazing at Crassus, the tribune began to chant. The words were archaic, barely comprehensible, but their portent was perfectly clear: Crassus was being cursed.
To such an accompaniment, then, did he set out from Rome on his Eastern command. Nothing could better have reminded him of the high price he had paid to secure it. What had previously been dearest to Crassus, his prestige, was shot to pieces. No wonder, during his consulship, that he had betrayed signs of nerves. Yet these were not, as his enemies hinted, evidence of senility or a loosening grip. In the ledger of Crassus’ mind, costs and benefits were still being balanced as cynically as ever. Only a prize beyond compare could have persuaded him to sacrifice his credit in the Republic. Syria on its own would hardly serve as recompense. In exchange for his good name Crassus wanted nothing less than the riches of the world.
In the past he had mocked such fantasies. His bitter rival, during his third and most grandiloquent triumph, had been followed by a giant float representing the globe. Yet Pompey the Great had been too nervous of the role of Alexander to indulge in it wholeheartedly, too respectful of the traditions of his city. Crassus, understanding this, and confirmed in his contempt for Pompey’s braggadocio, had originally felt no need to play the world conqueror himself. But then Caesar had taken up the role. In the space of two short years he had won himself wealth to rival Pompey’s. Crassus, chill and calculating, had not been slow to recognise the implications of this. Travelling to Ravenna, reaching his compact with Pompey and Caesar, mounting his brutal election campaign, he had been prompted by a mingling of greed and fear, of rampant avarice, and of a dread of being left behind. More clearly perhaps than either of his partners in crime, he had glimpsed an unsettling new order. In it a few high-achievers – maybe two, but Crassus hoped three – would wield a degree of power so disproportionate to that of their fellow citizens that Rome herself would be placed in their shadow. After all, if the Republic were the mistress of the world, then for men who dared seize control of it, and marshal its resources as they pleased, what limits could there be? The sky, perhaps – but nothing lower.
In the spring of 54 BC Crassus arrived in his new province and advanced to its eastern frontier. Beyond the River Euphrates a great trunk road stretched across flat desert until it passed into the glare of the horizon and could be seen no more. But Crassus knew where it led. Peering into the rising sun, he could glimpse, in his imagination, the haze of spices, the glint of onyx, cornelian and pearls. There were many fabulous reports of the riches of the East. It was said that in Persia there was a mountain formed entirely of gold; that in India the whole country was defended by ‘a wall built of ivory’;7 and that in China, the land of the Seres, silk was woven by creatures twice the size of beetles. No man of intelligence could believe such ludicrous stories, of course, but the fact that they were told served to illustrate an indubitable and glittering truth: the proconsul who made himself master of the Orient would have wealth beyond compare. No wonder that Crassus gazed east and dreamed.
Of course, if he were to plant the standards of the Roman people upon the shores of the Outer Ocean, then he would first have to deal with the barbarians at his door. Immediately beyond the Euphrates stood the kingdom of Parthia. Not much was known about it, except that the natives – like all Orientals – were effeminate and deceitful. Lucullus and Pompey had both signed peace treaties with them – an inconvenient detail that Crassus had not the slightest intention of respecting. Accordingly, in the summer of 54 he crossed the Euphrates and seized a number of frontier towns. The Parthians indignantly demanded his withdrawal. Crassus refused. Having procured his war, however, he was content to bide his time. The first year of his governorship he spent in profitable looting. The Temple in Jerusalem, and many others, were stripped bare. ‘Days were spent hunched over the measuring scales.’8Thanks to his careful accounting, Crassus was able to recruit an army truly worthy of his ambitions: seven legions, four thousand light infantry, as many horsemen again. Among the cavalry – an exotic touch – were a thousand Gauls. Their commander was Crassus’ youngest son, Publius, who had served with such success under Caesar and now looked to repeat his dashing exploits for his father. All was ready. In the spring of 53 Crassus and his army crossed the Euphrates again. The great adventure had begun.
At first the emptiness appeared to mock the scale of Crassus’ preparations. Ahead of his army, to the east, nothing could be seen save the haze of the heat. Then, at length, the advance guard came across hoofprints, the tracks of what appeared to be a large cavalry division. These turned aside from the road and vanished into the desert. Crassus decided to follow them. Soon the legions found themselves marching across a desolate plain with not a stream, nor even a blade of grass, in sight, only scorching dunes of sand. The Romans began to wilt. Crassus’ ablest lieutenant, a quaestor by the name of Cassius Longinus, urged his general to turn round, but Crassus, so skilled at making strategic retreats in the political arena, would not hear of it now. On the legions advanced. Then came the news for which their general had been hoping. The Parthians were near, and not just a cavalry division, but a large army. Eager to ensure that the enemy did not escape him, Crassus ordered on his legions. They were now in the heart of the baking, sandy plain. They could make out horsemen ahead of them, shabby and dusty. The legionaries locked shields. As they did so, the Parthians dropped aside their robes to reveal that both they and their horses were clad in glittering mail. At the same moment, from all around the plain, came the eerie sound of drums and clanging bells, a din ‘like the roaring of wild predators, but intermingled with the sharpness of a thunderclap’.9 To the Romans, it seemed barely human, a hallucination bred from the shimmering heat. Hearing it, they shuddered.
And all that long day was to have the pattern of a bad dream. The Parthians fled every effort to engage them, fading like mirages across the dunes, but armed, as they wheeled and galloped away, with steel-tipped arrows, which they fired into the sweating, parched, immobile ranks of legionaries. When Publius led his Gauls in pursuit, they were surrounded by the enemy’s heavy cavalry and wiped out. Publius himself was decapitated, and a Parthian horseman, brandishing the head on a spear, galloped along the ranks of Romans, jeering them and screaming insults at Publius’ father. By now the legions were surrounded. All day long the Parthians’ deadly arrows rained down upon them, and all day long, doggedly, heroically, the legions held out. With the blessed coming of dusk the shattered remnants of Crassus’ great expedition began to withdraw, retracing their steps to Carrhae, the nearest city of any size. From there, under the resourceful leadership of Cassius, a few straggling survivors made their way back across the Roman frontier.They left behind them twenty thousand of their compatriots dead on the battlefield, and ten thousand more as prisoners. Seven eagles had been lost. Not since Cannae had a Roman army suffered such a catastrophic defeat.
Crassus himself, stupefied by the utter ruin of all his hopes, was lured by the Parthians into a parley. Having tricked so many, he now found himself tricked in his turn. Caught up in a scuffle, he was struck down. Death spared Crassus a humiliating ordeal. Baulked of their prey, the Parthians inflicted it instead on an impersonator drawn from the ranks of their prisoners. Dressed as a woman, escorted by lictors whose rods were adorned by moneybags, and axes by legionaries’ heads, followed by jeering prostitutes, the captive was led in a savage parody of a triumph. Clearly, the Parthians knew more of Roman military traditions then the Romans had known of theirs.
Meanwhile, the head of the real Crassus had been dispatched to the court of the Parthian king. It arrived just as a celebrated actor, Jason of Tralles, was singing a scene from Euripides’ great tragedy, The Bacchae. By a gruesome coincidence, this was a play that featured a severed head. Jason, with the quick thinking of a true professional, seized the gory trophy and cradled it in his arms, then improvised an apt soliloquy. Unsurprisingly, the spectacle of Crassus as a prop in his own tragedy brought the house down.
For a man who had aimed so high and been brought so low, no more fitting end could have been devised.
The sky, after all, had not proved the limit.