Latin obscenities. With the snow melting fast now, the headwaters of the Cydnus River boiled and tumbled like a huge swirling cauldron, but once through the Cilician Gates the road became easier and the nights warmer. They were dropping rapidly toward the coast of Our Sea.
Tarsus, which lay on the Cydnus some twenty miles inland, came as a shock. Like Athens, Ephesus, Pergamum and Antioch, it was a city most Roman nobles knew, even if from a fleeting visit. A jewel of a place, hugely rich. But no more. Cassius had levied such a massive fine on Tarsus that, having melted down every gold or silver work of art, no matter how valuable, the Tarsians had been forced to sell the populace gradually into slavery, starting with the lowest born, and working their way inexorably upward. By the time that Cassius had grown tired of waiting and sailed off with the five hundred talents of gold that Tarsus had thus far managed to scrape together, only a few thousand free people were left out of what had been half a million. But not to enjoy their wealth; that had gone beyond recall.
‘By all the gods I hate Cassius!’ Antony cried, farther than ever from the riches he had expected. ‘If he did this to Tarsus, what did he do in Syria?’
‘Cheer up, Antonius,’ Dellius said. ‘All is not lost.’ By now he had supplanted Poplicola as Antony’s chief source of information, which was what he wanted. Let Poplicola have the joy of being Antony’s intimate! He, Quintus Dellius, was well content to be the man whose advice Antony esteemed and, right at this dark moment, he had some useful advice. ‘Tarsus is a big city, the center of all Cilician trade, but once Cassius hove in view, the whole of Cilicia Pedia stayed well away from Tarsus. Cilicia Pedia is rich and fertile, but no Roman governor has ever succeeded in taxing it. The region is run by brigands and renegade Arabs who get away with far more than Cassius ever did. Why not send your troops into Cilicia Pedia and see what’s to be found? You can stay here – put Barbatius in command.’
Good counsel, and Antony knew it. Better by far to make the Cilicians bear the cost of victualling his troops than poor Tarsus, especially if there were bandit strongholds to be looted.
‘Sensible advice that I intend to take,’ Antony said, ‘but it won’t be anything like enough. Finally I understand why Caesar was determined to conquer the Parthians – there’s no real wealth to be had this side of Mesopotamia. Oh, curse Octavianus! He pinched Caesar’s war chest, the little worm! While I was in Bithynia, all the letters from Italia said he was dying in Brundisium, would never last ten miles on the Via Appia. And what do the stay-athome letters have to say here in Tarsus? Why, that he coughed and spluttered all the way to Rome, where he’s busy smarming up to the legion representatives. Commandeering the public land of every place that cheered for Brutus and Cassius when he isn’t bending his arse over a barrel for apes like Agrippa to bugger!’
Get him off the subject of Octavian, thought Dellius, or he will forget sobriety and holler for unwatered wine. That snaky bitch Glaphyra doesn’t help – too busy working for her sons. So he clicked his tongue, a sound of sympathy, and eased Antony back onto the subject of where to get money in the bankrupt East.
‘There is an alternative to the Parthians, Antonius.’
‘Antioch? Tyre, Sidon? Cassius got to them first.’
‘Yes, but he didn’t get as far as Egypt.’ Dellius let the word ‘Egypt’ drop from his lips like syrup. ‘Egypt can buy and sell Rome – everyone who ever heard Marcus Crassus talk knows that. Cassius was on his way to invade Egypt when Brutus summoned him to Sardis. He took Allienus’s four Egyptian legions, yes, but, alas, in Syria. Queen Cleopatra cannot be impeached for that, but she didn’t send any aid to you and Octavianus either. I think her inaction can be construed as worth a ten-thousand-talent fine.’
Antony grunted. ‘Huh! Daydreams, Dellius.’
‘No, definitely not! Egypt is fabulously rich.’
Half listening, Antony studied a letter from his warlike wife, Fulvia. In it she complained about Octavian’s perfidies, and described the precariousness of Octavian’s position in blunt, graphic terms. Now, she scrawled in her own hand, was the time to rouse Italia and Rome against him! And Lucius thought this too: Lucius was beginning to enlist legions. Rubbish, thought Antony, who knew his brother Lucius too well to deem him capable of deploying ten beads on an abacus. Lucius leading a revolution? No, he was just enlisting men for big brother Marcus. Admittedly Lucius was consul this year, but his colleague was Vatia, who would be running things. Oh, women! Why couldn’t Fulvia devote herself to disciplining her children? The brood she had borne Clodius was grown and off her hands, but she still had her son by Curio and his own two sons.
Of course, by now Antony knew that he would have to postpone his expedition against the Parthians for at least another year. Not only did shortage of funds render it impossible; so did the need to watch Octavian closely. His most competent marshals, Pollio, Calenus and trusty old Ventidius, had to be stationed in the West with the bulk of his legions just to keep that eye on Octavian. Who had written him a letter begging that he use his influence to call off Sextus Pompeius, busy raiding the sea lanes to steal Rome’s wheat like a common pirate. To tolerate Sextus Pompeius had not been a part of their agreement, Octavian whinged – did Marcus Antonius not remember how the two of them had sat down together after Philippi to divide up the duties of the three Triumvirs?
Indeed I remember, thought Antony grimly. It was after I won Philippi that I saw as through crystal that there was nowhere in the West to reap enough glory for me to eclipse Caesar. To surpass Caesar, I will have to crush the Parthians.
Fulvia’s scroll fell to the desk top, curled itself up. ‘Do you really believe that Egypt can produce that sort of money?’ he asked, looking up at Dellius.
‘Certainly!’ said Dellius heartily. ‘Think about it, Antonius! Gold from Nubia, ocean pearls from Taprobane, precious stones from the Sinus Arabicus, ivory from the Horn of Africa, spices from India and Aethiopia, the world’s paper monopoly, and more wheat than there are people to eat it. The Egyptian public income is six thousand gold talents a year, and the sovereign’s private income another six thousand!’
‘You’ve been doing your homework,’ said Antony with a grin.
‘More willingly than ever I did when a schoolboy.’
Antony got up and walked to the window that looked out over the agora to where, between the trees, ships’ masts speared the cloudless sky. Not that he saw any of it; his eyes were turned inward, remembering the scrawny little creature Caesar had installed in a marble villa on the wrong side of Father Tiber. How Cleopatra had railed at being excluded from the interior of Rome! Not in front of Caesar, who wouldn’t put up with tantrums; but behind his back it had been a different story. All Caesar’s friends had taken a turn trying to explain to her that she, an anointed queen, was religiously forbidden to enter Rome. Which hadn’t stopped her complaining! Thin as a stick she had been, and no reason to suppose she’d plumped out since she returned home after Caesar died. Oh, how Cicero had rejoiced when word got around that her ship had gone to the bottom of Our Sea! And how downcast he had been when the rumor proved false. The least of Cicero’s worries, as things turned out – he ought never to have thundered forth in the Senate against me! Tantamount to a death wish. After he was executed, Fulvia thrust a pen through his tongue before I exhibited his head on the rostra. Fulvia! Now there’s a woman! I never cared for Cleopatra, never bothered to go to her soirées or her famous dinner parties – too highbrow, too many scholars, poets and historians. And all those beast-headed gods in the room where she prayed! I admit that I never understood Caesar, but his passion for Cleopatra was the biggest mystery of all.
‘Very well, Quintus Dellius,’ Antony said aloud. ‘I will order the Queen of Egypt to appear before me in Tarsus to answer charges that she aided Cassius,’
