XXXIII
Yes… Even you had remembered it. That familiar, recognizable though ghostly
presence which, months before, had come to interrupt that almost sacred moment: the
Western Sun matching the Queenly Goddess of Fertility. This situation was more than
convenient for you: coming to visit me in the middle of the night and, then, vanishing in
the middle of the night. Otherwise, you would not have celebrated your triumphifour triumphi and the pending ludi in memory of your daughter Julia. Marcia and Portia
could almost be heard and that inner anxiety which, thanks to my endurance, wouldn’t
manifest themselves through tears.
–It’s said that, as soon as the triumphi and ludi have been held, he will immediately go
to Hispania in order to suffocate the last focus of Pompeius’ followers’ resistance….
How many more days are you going to stay with him, Calpurnia? Don’t you think you
should return to Herculaneum with your father after Caesar’s departure? We both
witnessed how suddenly radiant you looked there…You badly need to leave Rome
and all this intoxicated air…
I felt their eyes full of understanding and tenderness…conscious of my prostration. No
doubt, despite it all, I should return to anointing. However, besides all that was
quivering inside me, I knew, I could read that in their eyes, that something else was
being told around Palatine Hill and other less selected vici in Rome. Something that
around… As I came to know later on, you had splendidly welcomed the Egyptian
queen, his little brother-husband and that few-month-old babe who was with them. It
had to be your niece Atia, your foster-son’s mother, who updated me with the latest
news, since Marcia, Portia, Cornelia or the vestals were delicate enough as not to drop
it, knowing that I hadn’t seen you for over two years.
It happened during the second triumphus, while we were beholding chained princess
Arsinoe being driven onwards as part of the parade, which had already arrived at the
Forum. Like Vercingetorix himself the day before. I’ll never understand how in a single
aroused by that amount of varied feelings I had gathered for so many days and
months and my own feverish state, triggered by all that didn’t know but could guess
crystal-clear. I could hardly understand each thing Atia was prattling about…. We both
did share our bedazzlement at those treasures which were displayed at the beginning
of the parade. It was the first time I could appreciate all that astonishing amount of
gold Gallic people used to own and their goldsmiths and blacksmiths’ amazing skill,
almost beyond what is human…Perhaps this exhibition of lavishness had been
planned to dazzle the audience so that it might lessen the painful impression made by
that man, extremely wasted after so many years’ rotting inside the Lautumiae. Adriven to his execution at Tulianum, his decrepitude would be obscenely, ruthlessly
leader should be a most degenerate, shameful one and, thus, he could be inflicted the
cruellest possible punishment for such a charismatic warrior. But it happened to be
useless. Beyond his corpse-like skinny appearance, his dry, thick colourless shock of
hair –almost waist-length –and parchment-like, deep-lined face, his strong personality
stood up above his prostration and fetters. No, I did not want to feel that choke in my
throat. He, like you, had moved thousands of wills. Mightn’t you have shared the same
fate? Like Crasus dying at the hands of Parthians, being satirized by a transvestite in a
sort of triumphal-like parody?...Gods…No… The spectre of that ambiguous Bithynian
king who was so related to you in your younger years seemed to hang over my
restlessness. The same that, once those white sacrifice-bound oxen had gone passed,
sped my heartbeat, blocking my breath and triggering a stream of cold sweat that
made me fear to collapse, maybe lifeless, and , consequently, destroy the first of your
great triumphi, which you had long been yearning for…. No, I decided to control my
pulse, feeling my blood beating inside my arms and chest at the same pace as the
slow trotting that was coming near through that solid, overwhelming clamour, that of
four crowned white horses driving a huge golden crown held by a slave, under which
revived Jupiter was manifesting himself through Venus’ descendant in front of Rome,
clad in royal purple, laurel-wreathed, brandishing the eagle-topped sceptre, hieratic,
crimson-chiselled. His cheekbones looked more sharpened than ever under that
remarkably worn-out parchment-like skin. That spectre-like blue-grey in his eyes
seemed blind, alien to everyone in that bountiful coming down onto earth. How could I
imagine myself as a worthy queen for a Divus Rex, being unable to perpetuate your
almost with the same admiration as your nephew and so many faces spread among
the crowd. Jupiter…? May Jupiter have suddenly abandoned that limited human
nature in which he had deigned himself to march through Rome and, then, left an
armless human being in front of a mass of drunken war veterans who denigrate their
general with howling and horselaugh? Why did I have to witness all that? Who could
have paid them for yelling out Nicomedes’ memory, that ambiguously-sexed monarch,
destroying your excessively glorious ascension … whereto? What brought it back to
my mind, the memory of that experience, vision, cursed dream? Perhaps it was the
effect of that force, drenched with destructive life, through which I once believed to
have inebriated that sacred serpent’s womb and that swollen virility filling it at that
moment. I held myself back in horrified repulsion. I knew it was me who was growing
undermined by all that.
A short while later, scared by the uproar, I saw how one of the chariot axes broke,
causing you to fall off, frightening half Rome. Just like when Sulla slid into the blood of
sacrificed oxen. There is no doubt that many of us felt somehow relieved when we
saw you climbing up Capitol stairs on your knees , as if, expiating your pride of feeling
like Jupiter, you could scare away the bad omen which that incident might have
inflicted on Rome. Meanwhile, that poor Gallic warrior who had once dared comparing
himself to New Alexander was purging it inside Tulianum .
As it was expected, you returned to your headquarters at Villa Publica, where you
would stay until the fourth triumphus. I sincerely welcomed it: having you on my lectus
that night would have felt infaustus, almost sacrilegious… since I considered myself
unworthy of a divus and that brutal, merciless despoiling you of your glory could make
me definitely impure? Perhaps this might be foretelling what would flog my inner being
the day after, during the celebration of the second triumphus, which was dedicated to
Egypt. I remember that, under our Octavius’ sharp look, I was talking with Atia about
the possibility that part of Alexandrian library would come to Rome in order to be
included in that one which was planned to be founded here. I don’t know why I might
think it could also be part of the booty which was being displayed at the beginning of
the parade. Behind the effigy of the river Nile, the great fertilizer, dominated by Isis,
the fertile goddess, personified, like Gaul rivers the day before, by a marble-like,
virility-overflowing male figure, there came a large turtle-shell cage with Arsinoe, that
vexed Egyptian princess, the unforgiven enemy of the woman who, next to her childlike
husband and her baby-boy, was triumphantly watching the scene form a distant
point.
–It is not fitful for them to come to this side of the Pomerium publicly. Nevertheless
the queen will be present at the inauguration of the temple that my uncle has erected
to worship Venus Genetrix in the Forum which he has planned at Campus Martius. It is
goddess’ ….
Was Atia really aware how deeply could this inner trembling shatter my health, both
physically and mentally? Perhaps I even thought that it might be a sort of strategy to
get rid of me altogether. No, I can’t admit there could be any plot against me. Though
no doubt it would be awfully clever, should it be true.. Maybe, still shocked by the
impression caused by Vercingetorix the day before, I was not so moved by the vision
of that young woman, still beautiful, haughty and fresh in spite of her chains, as many
Romans, mainly plebeians, dumb-looking, shivering, blinking back tears.
–They cannot imagine seeing a queen in chains…. It is something that transcends
their understanding, no matter Roman reticence against monarchy.
I made an effort to sound as cold as posible.
– The queen of Egypt…. She must be absolutely delighted by this show. Hasn’t she
ever thought that even she….could find herself in this situation one fine day…?
Frozen cold pricked my skin pores. What might have brought this idea to my thoughts?
Atia seemed to share my trembling: she was gazing at me, suddenly grown pale.
Beyond my eyes, I could almost perceive it crystal-clear, Cleopatra in a cage, turned
Frozen cold pricked my skin pores. What might have brought this idea to my thoughts?
Atia seemed to share my trembling: she was gazing at me, suddenly grown pale.
Beyond my eyes, I could almost perceive it crystal-clear, Cleopatra in a cage, turned
into a circus beast, smothered under heavy chains, being paraded along Via Sacra,
arousing public despising instead of compassion…. Anyway, there must certainly be
more of an ardent wish than some true foretelling of something still to come, such a
violent yearning that I thought it could be generating a blast of force which, like the
previous day, might make him collapse, drag away that triumphant divinized charioteer
who was coming behind, evidently pleased with this sublime gift which was being
“I also noticed that, Calpurnia” Kornel would confide later on. “I had the chance…I’d
rather say I sought for it…to be relatively near the Alexandrian Royal Family, so that t I
could study her face. It turned out to be deceiving, like all her presence, all of it
masked with gold, precious gems, silk and make-up…But, deep inside those black
henna tracks which counterfeited her eyes, I found some perfidious defying sparkle,
hiding what you felt. A small, insignificant being , almost invisible under those chains
which were her only companion in another parade like this, along Via Sacra, reaching
the Forum that one day will be built in your husband’s memory. I truly know that this is
the real pharaoh, the one who plots and schemes in order to avoid being destroyed
since she is aware that, unless she acts in a brutally menacing way, everyone will
notice she is the most vulnerable being of her species…”
On that occasion there was no uproar or humiliation, as it had sadly happened the day
before…Neither did we have to cope with them the two following days. It was during
the last one, dedicated to your African victory, when my attention stopped being
concentrated in the Egyptian queen, though I knew she was going to be present, as
usual. Who knows if I had previously guessed this day would be especially painful for
me since it would deeply affect my Marcia and Portia, apart from the fact that, as Atia
had told me, it was going to be more polemic than the previous triumphi, since no-onewould have ever before conceived the celebration of a victory over Romans. No doubt
that shock began to be clearly felt from the moment that Iuba, the little Mauritanian
prince, was exhibited as ruthlessly as any other illustrious prisoner. I saw many
women from the vici crying noisily. Then, there came the picture representing Scipio’s
token of profound respect for Pompeius’ father-in-law, the descendant of Hannibal’s
defeater and a lineage which was already glorious at the time when the Iulii were still
not renowned at all.
On an ivory carriage like the previous ones, there stood a huge painting with a being
who seemed to be human and whose remarkable nose and reddish hair I immediately
recognized in spite of not having seen him for so many years. He looked like a
ferocious beast, tearing his belly and enjoying the sight of his bloody entrails. Amidst
that nausea which invaded my body and those clouds blinding my eyes until a trail of
tears cleared them up, I heard shouting everywhere, everyone’s spontaneous
weeping….Wrath, anyway. Miraculously restrained but overflowing within those hurt
voices and increasing curses. My poor girls… Among the tears that were choking my
throat, some kind of strange happiness brightened me up. Most Romans were there at
that moment, feeling the same anger as my friends, who I could not make out in the
audience.
–Marcius told me that, obviously, his daughter was not willing to come with him… and
Portia had the intention of staying with her in such a…. special day. –Atia let me know
while, once again, we witnessed the confrontation between those who cheerfully
acclaimed the Victorious Sun characterized as Jupiter Capitolinus, this time less
roaring than the previous days, and that growing, thunder-like protest against that
impudent display of the last genuine Roman’s fateful ending, as I was to be told about
by his daughter, lit up by her father’s memory and that brand-new widow, still an
ardent lover….
–We knew it…. Rome will worship Cato forever…and there will be great men who will
not envy your husband’s glory in one, two hundred years, Calpurnia, whereas my
father’s memory will still remain….No matter how vilified he might be by those who
surround Caesar. By the way, Brutus is writing some kind of amending memento in his
honour….
As you can imagine, I could not protest at all, though I was meant to support your
views. No, I couldn’t, my lord… This was quite ill-advised of you. How on earth were
you able to make such a serious mistake? Is your knowledge of Roman people so
scarce as not to realize that they still worship the values of old Republic, beyond the
extravagant customs of so many patricians and homines novi? This was what started
to make me feel uneasy, my husband. The fact of seeing so many crucial aspects that
you don´t take into account –maybe due to bad counselling or your own self-
bedazzlement –and also being aware that a good number of Romans no longer
supported you, as it had been clearly seen throughout these last celebrations.
–Can’t you see, Calpurnia? Like us, many families have been the victims of his
proscriptions and deprived of their patrimony. No matter how clement he may show
himself by forgiving Pompeius’ collaborators. These are no more than external
gestures to try to convince Romans of his alleged good will. The most serious thing is
how shamelessly those who have become rich thanks to proscriptions flaunt their
wasteful spending…Brutus has told me that Caesar, in order to avoid rumours, may
probably pass a lex sumptuaria so as to restrict luxury. No, I don’t think he might
meaning would life have for Marcius Philippus if he should lead an austere existence?
Would abominable Antonius be willing to sacrifice himself for austerity’s sake? Not to
mention his dearest Clodii. Talking about showy spendthrifts...Cicero seems to have
the intention of … singing your husband’s glory? What does you father think about all
this, Calpurnia?
–Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus …All of us, including his daughter, know him
well. He is a skilful negotiator, able to speculate with anyone or anything he may have
at hand. Charming, learned ….but Lucius Calpurnius Piso, anyway.
This conversation was taking place in Cato’s just recovered domus, at the same time
as a huge mass of Roman vicini were struggling to grab as many as possible of those
endless delicacies which they would behold that evening for the first and last time in
their lives, the same kind of food and drink you could find on the tables of
indescribable Clodii and Marcius Philippus himself, apart from the variety of wines
from Campania, Greece and Hispania ,which had nothing in common with those you
can find in the taverns under the insulae or crossroad collegia. I had made an effort to
join my friends on such a sad day before meeting you up at that private banquet whichyou were offering in the Forum. It was going to be our first encounter before Rome’s
was the same ivory-like hand, though that parchment-like shade caused by such a
long exposure to sunlight, the same strong right hand which had brandished your
sword… Once again I could behold that face, hardened and pale, on which your skin,
worn-out by so many years of war campaigns, kept clung to those harmonious
prominent bones. Your thinned lips turned into that smile which would brighten the
rictus of those deep tracks on both sides of your mouth….
“Nevertheless, why should we discard the idea of counting on a similar figure to
ancient kings in order to solve the issues that this new universal Rome has to face. We
can’t remain hopelessly anchored on those fears from three hundred years ago.”
“But, Philodemus… does he really acts thinking of Rome’s interests? My father is not
the only one who knows which kind of plans has been making for himself since his
early youth…. So do you, Cornelia… After returning from his years as a quaestor in
Hispania, he plotted a rebellion of Northern Italian cities against the Senate. As you
can see, this has nothing to do with what your father did. Apart from doing his best to
crush down anyone who might be an obstacle for him. Just remember Bibulus, my late
former husband. Not to mention those vexations he inflicted on my father….He,
Marcus Portius Cato, was the only one who had the courage of denouncing Caesar’s
legions’ massacres in Gaul. What else could be said about how he faked his sounding
defeats at the hands of Britons and Germans? I beg you excuses, Calpurnia, but this
is something that your father knows too well.”
Yes, Portia was undeniably right. Her words thundered inside me while your trancelike,
alarmingly commanding eyes were studying my face, perhaps reading each of the
words that your late antagonist’s daughter had been telling us that evening during one
of those dinners at Herculaneum. I could not avoid noticing that your hair had become
extremely scarce and fully grey except for some fair streaks…You realized I had felt
unable to find any coherent words. Then you just laid an intense, almost wet kiss on
my forehead while carefully holding my icy hand…I remember you were with your
cousin Lucius and my father. You must have perceived my relief at not having to deal
with Marcus Antonius. That evening I began being aware that you did not fully trust
him. Even now, both my father and I have no doubts on his taking part in the first part
of the plot…And I know… as does Kornel, too … that he is also marked with that living
force, terrible and alien to what’s human, with which both of you were anointed .
Yourself and… the Egyptian cobra…Kornel once explained me that the curses of
Gallic sorcerers, who you know so well, derive from that generating power which
springs up within the deepest part of your inner self and connects you to that endless
field of eerie living energy which lies in the bosom of the earth…No, I should pluck that
scene out of my memories. Otherwise, you could remember it right then. I’m sure you
remember the talk we had about that feast you were offering to Roman people and ,
on the other hand, about the urgent need of having your will written, which, like
everyone else’s, would be kept under the Vestals’ custody, whose High Priestess
would deliver only to my father in its due time. Why did Lucius Calpurnius Piso
suddenly tremble? No, he couldn’t have been engaged in the plot… Yes, perhaps he
might have been somehow influential on it…. I tried to keep an attitude that might look
proper of the highly magnanimous Victor’s wife, concealing those traces that so manyreincarnated goddess from the East had possibly not been invited, perhaps due to
some rash of wise inspiration, on the grounds that a female Pharaoh, Ptah’s daughter,
could never be invited. It was she who must send for whomever she chose.
– Calpurnia, my little one….
These words were the only ones you repeatedly pronounced while your fingers were
slightly touching my face, once we were left alone inside the litter which was driving us
home along Via Sacra… between those two lines of walking bulks, the elephants that had been chosen as torch bearers to light up the road while the thankful crowd’s
clamouring was breaking that night’s silence. Perhaps all that bustling from outside
would not let you speak…It looked so weird, that flower wreath on your aged skin
despite the eerie sparkling of your grey-blue eyes…Maybe I would have preferred to
stay out there, watching that solemn, vibrating breath-taking sight of those twenty
elephants with their huge torches on top, setting fire to Rome’s black sky.
–I remember that elephant in Britannia…
Were you speaking to yourself? Some brief shivering ran across my body: yes,
perhaps you were able to perceive my thoughts ….
–Calpurnia, did I….? No, certainly not… How on earth could I have told you…? We
have hardly seen each other after our Gallic campaign! It was during our second
attempt in Britannia. We had managed to bring one of our elephants from the
Continent. Then we covered it with metal plates so that it could look like a cataphract,
with camouflaged soldiers on top, shooting all kinds of projectiles…
Your laughter sounded so loud and relaxed that it could even be heard from outside.
–Imagine the natives’ panicking! No doubt what a great discovery this was. We must
be grateful not only to Carthaginians but also to Macedonians themselves for it… It
made us Romans notice what an efficacious weapon they could ever be… Do you
know that when Pirro sent his elephants against Roman legions, these did not even
run away? Many of the corpses that remained lying on the battlefield had faces which
had been disfigured by horn impact.. Sorry, Calpurnia… I so often forget that I am no
longer in my campsite, dealing with my soldiers….
Your smile had suddenly become spontaneous, even shy….apologising. The old
shudder returned to my womb….
.... Where I welcomed you back a little while later, immediately after you had given your
formal but warm greeting to both the High Vestal and the small ones. It was hot that
night. Some warm damp air stream was coming from the shadowy peristylium, hanging
– You know, Calpurnia…? As soon as ludi are over, I‘ll return to Hispania…. I have
just remembered what I revealed to you about Sulla that night….
Why should I think you might be suspicious about how my pulse had suddenly sped
up?
–Could he still be alive?
I saw you smile in the shadows.
–I’ve just remembered that I forgot to tell you something then….Perhaps I did not do it
so as not to worry you…Are you upset, my little one? I feel your pulse accelerated…
Remember I told you about an acquaintance of mine and also Balbus’ who confided
me that secret with Sulla’s consent…Well, he dropped some words… I do not know
whether to consider them funny or enigmatic…On his last visit, Lucius Cornelius
himself had told him something about a hypothetical coupling of his seed and mine in
the future…And somebody would be born from it. Someone who, thanks to his
capacity to foretell, would avoid a most serious unfair murder which might affect
millions of people… What the hell would he mean by that? Could it be that, in the long
term, he would still be trying to keep some kind of supremacy over me? You can
imagine the effect this could have on a young quaestor, full of ambition and pride….
future. Neither did he want to establish a government structure that should be suitable
for a place which wasn’t a simple city anymore…. It’s really in Sulla’s line… His blood
blended with mine… Sometimes, Calpurnia, I think this all comes from some voracious
unsatisfied passion for my mother herself… Weren’t they enough for him, all his wives
and….that dancing queer who devoured his virility and health?...I’ve just
remembered… when he spoke about my seed and his, perhaps he referred to
Pompeia… How on earth could I have forgotten that….?
Your sincere thrilling guffaw dissipated the anxiety that was eating me up. For the first
time after so long I heard myself letting out some giggling which grew clearer and
more and more open as your rough but tender hands were exploring my breasts,
nipples, hips, legs….and your strong lips were gliding along my armpits and neck….
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