Caesar i-3

by Allan Massie

  This was all very well. It proved that his luminous mind had lost none of its accustomed invention and activity.

  But when I ventured to ask him, yet again, how he intended to reform the Constitution, with the implication (I admit) that any effective reform would make a future career like his own impossible, he frowned and declined to answer.

  Let me, as has ever been my endeavour throughout this memoir (which is not, I insist, primarily intended as a work of self-justification, but rather as a treatise which may edify such future generations as may chance upon it), let me then try to speak with all the honesty which I can muster.

  It may be beyond the wit of any man to restore the State. It may prove impossible, given the universal nature of our Empire, ever again to combine order with liberty.

  This is a matter which I had discussed with young Octavius. He responded to the question with all the pessimism characteristic of youth.

  Allan Massie

  Caesar

  "There has to be a supreme ruler of such an empire," he said, "and my uncle has made himself its master, as Pompey failed to do."

  "Sulla was such a master," I said. "He drew up a revised Constitution and then retired from public life."

  "And how long did his Constitution last?"

  We were in an arbour in his stepfather's garden. Ilex trees shaded us from the afternoon sun. A lizard ran along the wall. A slave brought us wine and we dismissed him. Then he was summoned by Octavius' stepfather, Philippus, as he lay at his ease, half-drunk, at the other end of the garden. We talked in low voices though none could hear us. It was about a month before we set out on the Spanish campaign, before Octavius had made clear to me that relations between us must now change.

  I said: "What do men want? Dignity, first of all."

  "Well, that can be arranged, can't it?"

  "Freedom from fear."

  "More difficult to ensure?"

  "The ability to exercise their powers to the full."

  "And if these powers clash, one man's with another's, as my uncle's did with Pompey's? What then?"

  He stroked his thighs. For a moment I was distracted, amazed as ever by his ability to be so conscious of his own body, yet capable of allowing his intellect to work independently of such preoccupations.

  "Do you know what has changed in Rome?" I said.

  When I recall my conversations with Octavius, I am perplexed ' — I was perplexed then, am even more so now — by what I can only call my consciousness of duality. This came on me in two forms. In the first place, there was that duality that philosophers have expounded. It was like those dialogues of Socrates: where you are aware that abstract philosophical questions are being debated in an atmosphere of highly charged sexuality. Such duality is always disturbing, and always alluring.

  But there was another duality that disturbed me more deeply. I could never be certain which of us — the experienced General, the man of action, the almost grizzled man of affairs — or the beardless boy who had his thighs shaved with red-hot almond shells, and who delighted in his beauty as the most mindless of women does — which of us was master and which disciple. Did I play Socrates to his Alcibiades, or was Alcibiades giving lessons to Socrates?

  So, now, when I said, "Do you know what has changed in Rome?" I did not, even as I spoke the words, know whether I was about to instruct him, or whether I was seeking information.

  Of course I must have been about to instruct him, for what could he tell me on such a matter?

  "Yes, of course," he said. "Rome made itself, or was formed by the gods, as an assembly of free men, exercising voting rights in the Forum about matters which concerned them intimately and of which they might be expected to have arrived at an informed opinion; and now the Roman populace, who still exercise, nominally at least, the same voting rights, who still claim to be the fount of political power, is composed of idle, workless layabouts, whose votes are for sale either to the highest bidder, or to the man who shouts the stupidest but most violent cry."

  I paused. He smiled.

  "Come on, my dear, contradict me if you dare." "You have told me what I was going to argue myself. And what is the consequence?"

  "Well this time, my dear, since we are in such evident agreement, let me urge you to provide the answer."

  "The answer is that popular politics, the politics of the elections, the politics that determine the magistracies, the politics that choose the men who must guide the destinies of Rome, have become a sham."

  "A lie," he smiled. "A game which the most honest among noblemen finds himself compelled to play most cynically."

  He sipped his wine, then, doing something which I had never seen done before, took a deep purple grape from the dish on the stone ledge beside his couch, and peeled it delicately with the nail of his forefinger.

  "My dearest Mouse," he said. "There is nothing to be done. Which is why men of intelligence like you and me — yes, and my uncle most of all — are driven to action, in an attempt to persuade ourselves that something worthwhile may yet be done. On the other hand, look across the garden, at my stepfather. He is drunk now, though it is early afternoon. He will stay drunk. Why not? He is rich. He has no part to play, not because he considers any part unworthy of his abilities, which by the way he grossly exaggerates, but because he considers his abilities unworthy of any task that might present itself to him. Somebody said to me the other day that a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Do you know what my friend Maecenas replied? 'Not so,' he said, 'a cynic knows the value of everything and knows it is not worth the price demanded.'"

  I was displeased to hear him quote Maecenas, but could not dissent from the judgment.

  And yet, Artixes, I find myself here, your father's hostage, your father's prisoner, and let me be honest, your father's destined victim, since none will pay the price he might demand for my release.

  Where stands cynicism there?

  Chapter 13

  But there was one other subject about which Caesar would talk as autumn turned to winter. This was his proposed campaign against Parthia. Now, let me admit that in other circumstances these plans would ha ve been justifiable. The Parthi ans were insolent and aggressive. Their victory over Marcus Crassus at Carrhae had given them a contempt for Rome. They threatened the security of the eastern frontier of our Empire. There was also the question of Armenia, that kingdom which, protruding south, must be dominated either by Rome or by Parthia.

  Yet these were not the real reasons why Caesar was determined to embark on this enterprise which exceeded in audacity all that even he had ever attempted. Nor was it the case that he was persuaded by Cleopatra, whom he had now installed in a palace on — if I remember rightly — the Esquiline, and whom he visited nightly for an hour before supper, sometimes indeed remaining there for the meal, and even for hours afterwards. It was true that as an Easterner she was eager to see Parthia humbled, and she admitted to me herself that she had a further reason.

  "I have realised, Mouse, my poor Mouse," she said in that tone which would have sounded caressing to any man who did not retain the echoes of Clodia's speech in his memory, "that here in this dull, conventional Rome, which is so boring — why did nobody ever warn me how boring Rome is? — here I can be nothing but Caesar's plaything — his piece of foreign skirt, as some rogue said the other day — a piece of insolence for which I am glad to say he was soundly whipped. But in the East, in Parthia, Caesar and Cleopa tra may reign as Sun and Moon — we shall be beyond compare. Do you wonder that I urge the campaign upon him? Besides, Mouse, he needs little urging. Caesar is one of those men who must ever journey further and into more dangerous territory to fulfil his Destiny. And…" she smiled like a kitten just developing into a cat "… it has been borne in on me that Cleopatra is part of that Destiny. We are yoked together. How he can tolerate that dreary Calpurnia is a mystery. I suppose it's part of the great boringness of Rome."

  No doubt her urging played a part. No
doubt she scarcely needed to urge.

  For the truth was that Caesar was indeed bored. That marvellous sagacity, that balance, that sense of the possible, seemed to me to be fleeing from him, as the god fled from Hercules. Caesar, who had once said to me, pinching the lobe of my ear, "Always remember there are two rules of politics, Mouse. First, that politics is the art of the possible; second, that what is possible may be enlarged by the manner in which the dice fall," now looked on Rome and its politics with loathing.

  "What have I achieved, Mouse? I have gained great glory. We have won glory and successes such as only Alexander may have exceeded. I dominate Rome as no man has since Sulla. Sulla! You know how I have ever loathed and despised him; and yet here I am, after so many battles, so many campaigns, no more, it seems, than another Sulla. Mouse, I am fifty-six. This is no way for Caesar to end, arranging who shall be consul this year and the next, which nonentity shall hold which praetorship, who should be fobbed off with this and who with that. Have I proved myself the favourite of the gods, I who am the descendant of Venus, only to find myself compelled to listen to lectures from Cicero, however carefully couched in respectful, even timid, language? Do I care which noble faction seeks that office, and which the other? Do I even care for the plaudits of the mob which any man of intelligence, sensibility and genius must despise?

  "No, Mouse, what shall it profit me to spend my declining years adjusting this, repairing that, meting out laws which Caesar himself despises to a stinking multitude that worship him while he gives them shows and Triumphs, and would as soon revile him if Fortune fled from him?

  "Mouse, Caesar, as you who m I have loved almost as my own son know only too thoroughly, cannot rest content with such dull matters, such petty business. What have we known? Clanging fights, where a man renews himself, burning towns, where a man sees his glory godlike shine, sinking ships, where our enemies are delivered to the gods that rule the sea, praying hands, to whom it is in our power to respond with life or death? And you would have me surrender such knowledge for

  … the administration of a corrupt and stinking polity?

  "Mouse, consider Parthia, that all but boundless empire across wastes of sand, those sands where Marcus Crassus — my equal for a few months in power, my superior in wealth, my inferior in all else — those sands where Marcus Crassus so ignobly perished. I have heard that there still remain Roman legionaries from his army, taken in that terrible battle, and ever since held in captivity. Would it not be a glorious action to restore them to their homes and families, to bring them back to the tutelage of their familial gods?

  "And Parthia, Mouse, is the heir of Persia which Alexander conquered. When I was in Egypt they asked me if I wished to visit Alexander's tomb, to gaze on the embalmed countenance of the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. But Caesar would not, Caesar refused, and all wondered. Some whispered even, 'Caesar is ashamed that he has not yet matched Alexander.' None dared say this to Caesar, but I could not fail to be aware of how the whispers ran. And in my heart I knew they spoke truth. I felt in my bosom a keen jealousy of Alexander who all his life had been free from the petty constraints of political necessities that have bound me; and I knew in my heart that till I had equalled his achievement, I could not gaze upon him…"

  "But Caesar," I tried to say, "think of Gaul, consider Pharsalus.." He brushed my intervention aside.

  "And so, Parthia, to subdue that empire as Alexander subdued the majesty of Darius. And then… to follow my star still… wherever it shall lead me… to India perhaps where Alexander himself was stopped, or, a still grander scheme presents itself to me, a campaign which would be seen by all as a new wonder of the world… to traverse the Hyrcanian wastes, and march on the north side of the Caspian Sea to where the frosty Caucasus proudly challenge the heavens themselves, the Caucasus where Prometheus was held, victim of his unparalleled audacity. Then to carry war into Scythia, that unknown land of terrible barbarians, to march up the Danube into the dark forests of Germany, and so reach the Rhine from this new and strange direction. After which, I would again be received in Gaul as a godlike redeemer. I would have drawn the new boundary of the Roman Empire and extended its limits to the ocean on every side…

  "Would this not be a fit culmination to Caesar's career? And why not? I cannot rest here in this stew of corruption. Caesar is a man unbound, who will not consent to be confined…"

  I cannot swear, now and in my present distress, that these were Caesar's precise words. Furthermore I have condensed into one oration the gist of innumerable conversations we had on these matters at that time. But I remember three things which, at different moments, came to my mind, though I did not choose to utter any of them to him.

  The first was, with what difficulty he had advanced a few paltry miles into the mist-shrouded island of Britain.

  The second was my memory of how Clodia had told me that when Caesar first informed her (in bed) that he was a god, she had imagined he was inviting her to share a joke; and only much later had realised that he spoke in all seriousness.

  And the third was that a priest once told me it was written in the Sibylline Books, those repositories of ultimate wisdom, that "The Romans could never conquer the Parthians unless they went to war under the conduct of a king…"

  Artixes said to me:

  "But from what you say, this Caesar of yours was a madman. In Gaul we venerate such beings but we do not entrust them with responsibility."

  "Don't you remember, my dear," I replied, "that I told you Cato once said Caesar was the only sober man to set himself to destroy the State?"

  "Many madmen are nevertheless sober," Artixes said.

  Chapter 14

  I must hurry. The days shorten. Artixes assures me that no reply has yet arrived by way of the emissaries his father, the Prince, sent. But there is a look in his eye which suggests to me that his father no longer has any great hopes of receiving a substantial ransom.

  As the days shortened then too, in that, my last Roman winter, the mood of the city grew ever more tense, and sharp-knifed.

  Casca remarked to me one day: "It's odd, isn't it? We fought all these battles and nothing is settled. A few great men have disappeared — none of my creditors, unfortunately. The parties have re-formed. Cicero has less to say for himself. But otherwise nothing seems to have changed, except that, I'm sorry to say, Diosippus has quite lost his looks. Even that diet I put him on hasn't worked. It merely makes him look his years. However, I have had some hopeful reports from my agent in the slave-market. He tells me he expects a charming cargo from Phrygia very soon. Don't see how he can be telling the truth, not with the seas as they are. They'll either be wrecked or arrive utterly wind-blown and ugly, while if they attempt the overland journey it'll take months to get them into any desirable condition."

  There were days when Casca was a considerable comfort. On the other hand he went on to say, "Don't you think our Lord and Master is behaving really a bit oddly these days? Too bizarre for words. Only the other afternoon he was seen to be wearing knee-length red boots. Yes, bright red boots. And when someone had the nerve to ask him what this was in aid of, he declared that his ancestors, the Alban kings, had always been accustomed to wearing such boots as a sig n of their rank. Well, to me of course, that simply explains why the Alban kings haven't lasted. I can't think of anything to make anyone look sillier than knee-length red boots, like a comedian in a low pantomime. But, well, our Lord and Master — I mean I know he has some pretensions to a certain wit, but I've never thought he had a sense of humour. Indeed I remember once suggesting to you that it would take a surgical operation to get a joke into Caesar's head. You bit my head off, I remember. After all, those were the days when you thought the sun shone out of Caesar's arse, and, to be fair to you, he had something of the same idea about you. Well, as you know, I followed him with the utmost and most admirable loyalty, for quite different reasons: because I saw that the old boy was a winner, and, except at the gaming-tables, your fat old
Casca has always preferred to be on the winning side. In any case, when it came to a choice between the noble and fortunate Caesar and that great lump of lard they used to call the Great One, it was as simple for me as choosing between a pretty lad and, let us say, Calpurnia; but — how I do ramble on, I've always noticed that garrulity is the sign that I'm worried. Anyway, to cut a long matter short, as the man said when he made a eunuch of a Nubian, do you suppose our esteemed master is going off his rocker? Because, darling Mouse, if he is, I'm going to find another bed to lie in. What do you say?"

  What could I say? I certainly couldn't start talking about the Parthian plans and the Hyrcanian wastes and the frosted Caucasus. So I said:

  "You've always underestimated Caesar's sense of humour. Besides, he's a dandy. He's always been famous for being a dandy. And dandies take strange whims at times. Do you remember that chap — who was it? — one of the Dolabellas, I forget which — who had his hair permed with goats' piss because he thought it gave it a most distinguished sheen?"

  But others were worried too. One was Calpurnia. She summoned me to her presence, taking care to do so on a night when she knew that Caesar was with Cleopatra.

  I obeyed, without enthusiasm. As I've made clear, I always disliked Calpurnia. She has less charm than any woman I have ever known except the Madam who ran a certain brothel in Cadiz.

  She looked even more than usually scraggy and nervous that evening, with her hair unsuitably dyed a dull red. She had been drinking too; her breath stank of acidulous white wine. Her hands, the fingers loaded with rings, were never still. They patted her hair, plucked at her neck, twisted around each other. She could not sit still, but, having directed me to a couch, immediately leapt up and flitted about the room, her gait unsteady as she embarked on a monologue.

  "He's bewitched, that's what it is, that woman, whether she has actually given him some potion, I can't say, but she's bewitched him. And she's not really beautiful, you told me that yourself, and others have confirmed it, so what does he see in her if she's not bewitched him? I could strangle her with my own hands, yes I could, look, just like this, like wringing a chicken's neck, I'm told he calls her 'Chicken'. And this boy she has with her, this child, she says he's Caesar's son. I don't believe it myself, I've good reason not to, you know, think of all the women Caesar has had, and have any of the others claimed he has fathered a child? No, of course not, well there's that bitch Servilia, she's sometimes hinted, or let others hint, or not denied, that that toad Marcus is Caesar's child. But it's not true, because I don't believe he's… well, I've never said this to anyone and you're to keep it to yourself, but though I've never had children myself I had three miscarriages by my first husband, and Caesar has never made me pregnant. So, what conclusion do you draw from that? It's obvious, isn't it, he's sterile. Between you and me, that's why he's so determined to be a Great Man. It's to wipe out the shame of not being, well, normal, of not being able to father a child. That's the truth, and that little bitch has the brass neck to call the child Caesarion. And he purrs and goes along with it… but it's not true." (Calpurnia was talking nonsense. Caesar and his first wife had a daughter, Julia, later married to Pompey.) "And now he's set on this Parthian expedition, it's madness, I've told him that, but, well, you know him, you've known him all your life, yes of course I know your mother was one of his lovers, that doesn't worry me, it was before my time, do you think he's going mad?