Caesar’s Wife — Caesar II: Rome on Credit
That whole night was played out under a secrecy protected by law. Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, is a goddess of women, and her festival is held once a year in the house of a consul or praetor. Plutarch explains the rules: no man may be present at the rites or even remain in the house. The host leaves together with all the men, and his wife takes charge of the house. In December 62 BC the hostess is Pompeia.
According to Plutarch, the women cover booths with vine branches, and a sacred serpent lies beside the goddess. The main rituals take place at night, with music and merriment. The Romans say the goddess is a nymph, the wife of Faunus, but the Greeks and Phrygians tell other stories about her. All agree on one thing: no man may enter.
Pompeia, Caesar’s second wife and Sulla’s granddaughter, is young and, according to Plutarch, not indifferent to the advances of Publius Clodius. Other sources are more cautious: Suetonius and Appian mention only a suspicion. Clodius is a patrician, rich and eloquent, and in sheer audacity, as Plutarch writes, he surpasses all the scoundrels of his day. Aurelia, Caesar’s mother, watches her daughter-in-law’s every move, so an ordinary meeting is almost impossible. That is why Clodius, still beardless, disguises himself as a lute girl.
Why is this more than a society scandal? Because it is sacrilege, committed in the house of a man who as pontifex maximus guards Rome’s rites. The Senate orders a judicial inquiry. One of the tribunes of the plebs prosecutes Clodius, and influential senators testify against him.
And Caesar? He divorces his wife at once. Only in court will he be asked a question he will never forget.
The trial, 61 BC. Caesar is summoned as a witness. He says he knows nothing about the charges against Clodius. Suetonius adds that his mother Aurelia and his sister Julia gave the judges a full and accurate account. So the puzzled prosecutor asks: if you know nothing, why did you divorce your wife?
What did the answer buy him? He accused no one, and yet he came out of the affair with clean hands, because his wife was gone. And he made no enemy of Clodius, whom the people loved. Plutarch records two versions: according to some he testified sincerely, according to others he wished to please the people, who had resolved to save Clodius.
Clodius was acquitted. The judges, as Plutarch writes, cast their votes in illegible writing, so as to offend neither the crowd nor the aristocracy. In his letters Cicero speaks of bribery, and the money was rumored to come from Crassus. Clodius will not forget who held back from attacking him. In a few years, with Caesar’s help, he will become a tribune of the plebs and master of the Roman street.
In Rome, trials are half of politics. Influential senators testify against Clodius, also accusing him of incest with his own sister, the wife of Lucullus (Plutarch 10). Behind him stand the people, who intimidate the judges. Caesar watches and draws a conclusion that will serve him later: a Roman court judges not what happened, but who has the crowd behind him.
Spring, 61 BC. Caesar receives Further Spain as praetor and packs for the journey, but his creditors will not let him leave. Appian records his quip that he needs twenty-five million sesterces just to be worth nothing. Only when Crassus stands surety for 830 talents can Caesar set out.
On the road through the Alps, his companions pass a wretched mountain village and laugh: do people fight over offices even here? Caesar answers gravely that he would rather be first here than second in Rome.
In Spain he finally does what he had wept for in Gades. In a few days he raises ten cohorts to add to the twenty already stationed there, defeats the Callaeci and the Lusitani and reaches the ocean. Then he reconciles debtors with creditors: the debtor is to give the creditor two thirds of his annual income until the debt is gone. He returns rich, and his soldiers proclaim him imperator.
Summer, 60 BC. Caesar returns from Spain with plunder and the title of imperator, and walks straight into a legal trap. A commander who wants a triumph must wait with his army outside the city walls. A candidate for consul must register in person, in the city. The elections are just around the corner. Caesar asks the Senate for permission to stand in absentia, through friends, but Cato, his greatest enemy, rises and speaks until dusk, running out the last day for registration.
Cato won the dispute over procedure, but lost everything else. Caesar enters the city as a private citizen and runs. Now he must win the election, and then push anything at all through a Senate that cannot stand him. He cannot do it alone. He needs two men who hate each other.
Before we go on, let us check how much of these stories is fact and how much is rumor. Ancient authors wrote about people after their deaths, and Caesar had many enemies and many admirers.