~ ~ ~ ~
The five days before the next triumph were devoted to games, again held on a scale never seen before in Rome. A wooden amphitheater was erected in the Forum for gladiatorial games, where hundreds of pairs fought, some of them to the death, the most notable being between a disgraced Senator who was slain by the son of a Praetor. There was a series of battles fought out, first between two groups of 1,000 gladiators per side acting as infantry, then between 200 mounted men per side. The blood flowed freely, and the crowds loved it, including the men who sat in the section designated for the army, these Legionaries attending according to the lots drawn every day to determine who could go. Out on the Field of Mars, a temporary stadium was erected where people watched athletic competitions featuring contestants brought in from all parts of the Republic.
But the best part, at least as far as all the men were concerned, was the news given to us at a formation the day after the triumph, where Caesar himself announced to us that he was paying off all that he had promised to the men, and then some. Each man was given 5,000 denarii apiece, or about 20,000 sesterces, while each Centurion received 10,000, except for all Centurions of the first grade who received twelve thousand. Primi Pili like myself received 15,000, which equates to about 60,000 sesterces. With this amount added to what I already had, I now had the 400,000 sesterces needed for a man of my station to elevate to the equestrian class. With the term of my enlistment ending soon, my future was assured. Yet, I no longer had any intention of leaving the army. That decision was made for me when my family died, and now I was not willing to leave the only other family I had. Unlike most of the men, I did not celebrate the news by immediately running out and gambling a large percentage of it away, or by attempting to drink the city dry. I did replenish my stock of Falernian, which cost me quite a bit more than usual because of the circumstances of so many people and so much money floating about, which inflated the cost.
All around the city, rivers of wine were flowing as the masses spent part of the 100 denarii that Caesar had paid to each and every citizen toasting his name. I believe that you could not have filled a Cohort with sober men, yet not everyone was happy with Caesar. It is easy to look back now to see the signs that would lead to the event of his death, though at the time, it seemed little more than sour grapes from members of his own class. It was only after the first triumphal parade when we had returned to camp that we heard about the negative reaction to Caesar’s 72 lictors, although we thought it a perfectly reasonable thing to reward every man who had been a lictor with the chance to march in the parade. A lictor’s term is only one year, so over the years, Caesar had many lictors, and not all of them were in the parade. Apparently, his fellow patricians and Senators did not see it that way, so there had been some grumbling about it. Of course, once Caesar heard about it, he was more determined than ever that every one of his parades would contain the same number of lictors. In fact, word was sent out to look for the rest of the men who had not been summoned to march in the first parade, though fortunately, none of them showed up, or there is no telling what his peers would have made of him marching with 90 lictors, or a hundred. Still, as far as the people were concerned, Caesar could do no wrong, and his name was toasted night and day. Finally, the day came for the second triumph, for his victory in Egypt, and for this occasion, I was reunited with the men of the 6th.
~ ~ ~ ~
The Egyptian parade was in some ways more elaborate than the first, but during this procession, I believe that Caesar made his first real misstep, because it was with the people and not the upper classes. The night before the parade, I made my way over to the 6th’s area, where I found Felix, Sertorius, and Clemens sitting around a fire, talking idly about something or other. They appeared to be genuinely happy to see me. I had seen them briefly before, but since it was shortly after I returned from Brundisium, I had not been in much of a mood for small talk. Now I was sufficiently recovered, and I am sure the amphora of wine I brought along smoothed whatever awkwardness there might have been.
“How have things been with the men?” I asked.
The three of them looked at each other, then Felix shrugged. “Well enough. They were certainly happy about the bonus Caesar paid us, but they’re all ready to go home, Primus Pilus.”
I nodded, having expected to hear something like that, this now being a common refrain throughout much of the army, particularly the Spanish Legions.
“Well,” I replied, “that’s to be expected. But since those whelps of Pompey ran off to Hispania, we will be going home, I just don’t think it’s quite in the way that the men were hoping.”
“We figured as much,” Sertorius replied. He scratched his chin as he stared into the fire. “Truth be known, it doesn’t really much matter to me. I’m not leaving the army.”
“Neither am I,” added Clemens. Felix remained silent, and soon we were all looking his way.
Catching our gaze, he shifted uncomfortably, then shrugged again. “I still haven’t decided. What about you, Primus Pilus?” he asked me. “Last time we talked about it, you still weren’t sure what you were going to do. Have you decided?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, mentally preparing myself for what I knew was coming next.
“I bet your wife’s not happy about that. You probably won’t be doing any slap and tickle for a while,” Sertorius joked. I saw by the wince on Felix’s face that at least he knew.
“You’re right about that,” I said as lightly as I could, for I truly did not want Sertorius to feel badly about something he had no knowledge about, so I changed the subject.
“The men are ready for tomorrow?”
“Of course, Primus Pilus,” Clemens said a little stiffly, and I saw that I had offended all three of the men by even asking the question of such a veteran Legion.
“I knew they would be. Forgive me, it’s just a habit.”
We talked of other things for a while, then I took my leave, and I could see their relief at my departure. It is a funny thing about being in a unit. When you are finally accepted, you are as a brother to each and every man, but once you leave, something changes. Each Legion, each Cohort, each Century in the army has a life of its own, and that life continues whether an individual is present or not. When someone returns after an absence, even a short one, things have happened that the returning man is not part of, which makes him a little less a part of the family than before he left. The longer he is away, the more pronounced the effect, and I had been back with the 10th now for almost a year. I would always be welcome at their fires, yet I would never quite be a part of things the way I was when we were besieged in Alexandria, which made me a little sad as I thought about it. It seemed as if a large part of my life in the last year had been one of loss in a number of different ways.