Caesar's Women Read Free

headquarters.”
    “Uncle Cato was in the right. Cato the Censor put the column there when he built Rome's first basilica, and there it belongs according to the mos maiorum. Cato the Censor allowed the tribunes of the plebs to use his building as their headquarters because he understood their plight—because they are magistrates elected by the Plebs alone, they don't represent the whole People, and can't use a temple as their headquarters. But he didn't give them the building, only the use of a part of it. They were grateful enough then. Now they want to alter what Cato the Censor paid to build. Uncle Cato won't condone the defacement of his great-grandfather's landmark and namesake.”
    Since Julia was by nature a peacemaker and disliked argument, she smiled again and rested her hand on Brutus's arm, squeezing it affectionately. He was such a spoiled baby, Brutus, so stuffy and full of self-importance, yet she had known him for a long time, and—though she didn't quite know why—felt very sorry for him. Perhaps it was because his mother was such a—a snaky person?
    “Well, that happened before my Aunt Julia and my mother died, so I daresay no one will ever demolish the column now,” she said.
    “Your father's due home,” said Brutus, mind veering to marriage.
    “Any day.” Julia wriggled happily. “Oh, I do miss him!”
    “They say he's stirring up trouble in Italian Gaul on the far side of the river Padus,” said Brutus, unconsciously echoing the subject becoming a lively debate among the group of women around Aurelia and Servilia.
    “Why should he do that?” Aurelia was asking, straight dark brows knitted. The famous purple eyes were glowering. “Truly, there are times when Rome and Roman noblemen disgust me! Why is it my son they always single out for criticism and political gossip?''
    “Because he's too tall, too handsome, too successful with the women, and too arrogant by far,” said Cicero's wife, Terentia, as direct as she was sour. “Besides,” added she who was married to a famous wordsmith and orator, “he has such a wonderful way with both the spoken and the written word.”
    “Those qualities are innate, none of them merits the slanders of some I could mention by name!” snapped Aurelia.
    “Lucullus, you mean?” asked Pompey's wife, Mucia Tertia.
    “No, he at least can't be blamed for it,” Terentia said. “I imagine King Tigranes and Armenia are occupying him to the exclusion of anything in Rome save the knights who can't make enough out of gathering the taxes in his provinces.”
    “Bibulus is who you mean, now he's back in Rome,” said a majestic figure seated in the best chair. Alone among a colorful band, she was clad from head to foot in white, so draped that it concealed whatever feminine charms she might have owned. Upon her regal head there reared a crown made of seven layered sausages rolled out of virgin wool; the thin veil draped upon it floated as she swung to look directly at the two women on the couch. Perpennia, chief of the Vestal Virgins, snorted with suppressed laughter. “Oh, poor Bibulus! He never can hide the nakedness of his animosity.”
    “Which goes back to what I said, Aurelia,” from Terentia. “If your tall, handsome son will make enemies of tiny little fellows like Bibulus, he only has himself to blame when he's slandered. It is the height of folly to make a fool of a man in front of his peers by nicknaming him the Flea. Bibulus is an enemy for life.”
    “What ridiculous nonsense! It happened ten years ago, when both of them were mere youths,” said Aurelia.
    “Come now, you're well aware how sensitive tiny little men are to canards based on their size,” said Terentia. “You're from an old political family, Aurelia. Politics is all about a man's public image. Your son injured Bibulus's public image. People still call him the Flea. He'll never forgive or forget.”
    “Not to mention,” said Servilia tartly, “that Bibulus has an avid