Caesar was simply God.’
Having known Antony since they were boys, Poplicola didn’t say that he thought God was superior to the God of This or That; his chief job was to keep Antony governing, so he greeted this speech with relief. That was the thing about Antony; he could suddenly cease his carousing – sometimes for months on end – especially when his sense of self-preservation surfaced. As clearly it had now. Alocus he was right; the potentatic invasion meant trouble as well as hard work, therefore it behooved Antony to get to know them individually; learn which rulers should keep their thrones, which lose them to more capable men. In other words, which rulers were best for Rome.
All of which meant that Dellius held out scant hope that he would achieve his goal of moving closer to Antony in Nicomedia. Then Fortuna entered the picture, commencing with Antony’s command that dinner would not be in the afternoon, but later. And as Antony’s gaze roved across the sixty Romans strolling into the dining room, for some obscure reason it lit upon Quintus Dellius. There was something about him that the Great Man liked, though he wasn’t sure what; perhaps a soothing quality that Dellius could smear over even the most unpalatable subjects like a balm.
‘Ho, Dellius!’ he roared. ‘Join Poplicola and me!’
The brothers Decidius Saxa bristled, as did Barbatius and a few others, but no one said a word as the delighted Dellius shed his toga on the floor and sat on the back of the couch that formed the bottom of the U. While a servant gathered up the toga and folded it – a difficult task – another servant removed Dellius’s shoes and washed his feet. He didn’t make the mistake of usurping the locus consularis; Antony would occupy that, with Poplicola in the middle. His was the far end of the couch, socially the least desirable position, but for Dellius – what an elevation! He could feel the eyes boring into him, the minds behind them busy trying to work out what he had done to earn this promotion.
The meal was good, if not quite Roman enough – too much lamb, bland fish, peculiar seasonings, alien sauces. However, there was a pepper slave with his mortar and pestle, and if a Roman diner could snap his fingers for a pinch of freshly ground pepper, anything was edible, even German boiled beef. Samian wine flowed, though well watered; the moment he saw that Antony was drinking it watered, Dellius did the same.
At first he said nothing, but as the main courses were taken out and the sweeties brought in, Antony belched loudly, patted his flat belly and sighed contentedly.
‘So, Dellius, what did you think of the vast array of kings and princes?’ he asked affably.
‘Very strange people, Marcus Antonius, particularly to one who has never been to the East.’
‘Strange? Aye, they’re that, all right! Cunning as sewer rats, more faces than Janus, and daggers so sharp you never feel them slide between your ribs. Odd, that they backed Brutus and Cassius against me.’
‘Not really so odd,’ said Poplicola, who had a sweet tooth and was slurping at a confection of sesame seeds bound with honey. ‘They made the same mistake with Caesar – backed Pompeius Magnus. You campaigned in the West, just like Caesar. They didn’t know your mettle. Brutus was a nonentity, but for them there was a certain magic about Gaius Cassius. He escaped annihilation with Crassus at Carrhae, then governed Syria extremely well at the ripe old age of thirty. Cassius was the stuff of legends.’
‘I agree,’ said Dellius. ‘Their world is confined to the eastern end of Our Sea. What goes on in the Spains and the Gauls at the western end is an unknown.’
‘True.’ Antony grimaced at the syrupy dishes on the low table in front of the couch. ‘Poplicola, wash your face! I don’t know how you can stomach this honeyed mush.’
Poplicola wriggled to the back of the couch while Antony looked at Dellius with an expression that said he understood much that Dellius had hoped to hide: the penury, the New Man status, the vaunting ambition. ‘Did any among the sewer rats take your fancy, Dellius?’
‘One, Marcus Antonius. A Jew named Herod.’
‘Ah! The rose among five weeds.’
‘His metaphor was avian – the hawk among five sparrows.’
Antony laughed, a deep rich bellow. ‘Well, with Deiotarus, Ariobarzanes and Pharnaces here, I’m not likely to have much time to devote to half a dozen quarrelsome Jews. No wonder the five weeds hate our rose Herod, though.’
‘Why?’ asked Dellius, assuming a look of awed interest.
‘For a start, the regalia. Jews don’t bedizen themselves in gold and Tyrian purple – it’s against their laws. No kingly trappings, no images, and their gold goes into their Great Temple in the name of all the people. Crassus robbed the Great Temple of two thousand gold talents before he set off to conquer the Kingdom of the Parthians. The Jews cursed him, and he died ignominiously. Then came Pompeius Magnus asking for gold, then Caesar, then Cassius. They hope I won’t do the same, but they know I will. Like Caesar, I’ll ask them for a sum equal to what Cassius asked for.’
Dellius wrinkled his brow. ‘I don’t – ah …’
‘Caesar demanded a sum equal to what they gave Magnus.’
‘Oh, I see! I beg pardon for my ignorance.’
‘We’re all here to learn, Quintus Dellius, and you strike me as quick to learn. So fill me in on these Jews. What do the weeds want, and what does Herod the rose want?’
‘The weeds want Herod exiled under pain of death,’ Dellius said, abandoning the avian metaphor. If Antony liked his own better, so would Dellius. ‘Herod wants a Roman decree allowing him to live freely in Judaea.’
‘And who will benefit Rome more?’
‘Herod,’ Dellius answered without hesitation. ‘He may not be a Jew according to their lights, but he wants to rule them by marrying some princess with the proper blood. If he succeeds, I think Rome will have a faithful ally.’
‘Dellius, Dellius! Surely you can’t think Herod faithful?’
The rather faunlike face creased into a mischievous grin. ‘Definitely, when it’s in his best interests. And since he knows the people he wants to rule hate him enough to kill him if they get a tenth of a chance, Rome will always serve his interests better than they will. While Rome is his ally, he’s safe from all but poison or ambush, and I can’t see him eating or drinking anything that hasn’t been thoroughly tasted, nor going abroad without a bodyguard of non-Jews he pays extremely well.’
‘Thank you, Dellius!’
Poplicola intruded his person between them. ‘Solved one problem, eh, Antonius?’
‘With some help from Dellius, yes. Steward, clear the room!’ Antony bellowed. ‘Where’s Lucilius? I need Lucilius!’
On the morrow, the five members of the Jewish Sanhedrin found themselves first on the list of supplicants Mark Antony’s herald called. Antony was clad in his purple-bordered toga and carried the plain ivory wand of his high imperium: he made an imposing figure. Beside him was his beloved secretary, Lucilius, who had belonged to Brutus. Twelve lictors in crimson stood to either side of his ivory curule chair, the axed bundles of rods balanced between their feet. A dais raised them above the crowded floor.
The Sanhedrin leader began to orate in good Greek, but in a style so florid and convoluted
