Caesar i-3

by Allan Massie

  Cassius and Markie now closed on him. Cassius knelt, supporting Cimber's plea, as we had arranged. Markie stood a little apart. He had refused to kneel.

  Again Caesar swept his arm across his face in a gesture of refusal. It wouldn't have mattered if he had assented, but that refusal of so reasonable a request was as the ultimate justification of our intent. I drew near enough to hear Caesar say:

  "No, and forever no. The decree of banishment stands. If you all kneel before me and fawn on me, I reject your demands as I would dismiss a mongrel cur. When will you learn that Caesar is constant as the northern star, fixed like none other in the firmament?"

  "When will you learn that men are still men?" said Casca, and stabbed him in the neck.

  Cassius was next to strike, then Markie aimed a blow. It ran through Caesar's toga and the dagger stuck there.

  Caesar struggled to his feet, but we were all upon him.

  "This for Pompey…"

  "Dictator for life…"

  "Tyrant…"

  "For my brother…"

  He caught my eye. For a moment horror and reproach filled the theatre.

  "Not you, my son."

  I thrust my dagger under the breast-bone.

  Amazement crept over his countenance. He pulled the toga over his head, and slumped to the marble. His hands clutched at the pedestal of Pompey's statue. Even as he lay there, others of our friends drew near and stabbed him. The body kicked and was still, as the blood ran across the floor towards the rostrum.

  We stood in a ring around the body. I think we were all astonished, that it had been so easy.

  One moment, Caesar; and the next, a piece of bleeding flesh, authority and majesty departed, like a door slammed by the wind. The tune of the piper who had lured us into Italy sounded a moment in my imagination, and was still.

  A senator who had not been of our party picked up a fallen dagger and knelt over the thing that had been Caesar to add his wound to the many it had received. Cassius detained him.

  "We are not butchers," he said, "and you had no part in the danger. Therefore, no part either in the honour."

  My left arm was bleeding, gashed by a blow aimed at Caesar. I bound it up with a rag.

  Markie advanced into the open space where the actors played, and raised his voice:

  "Do not be alarmed, Conscript Fathers. We intend no harm to any other man. I pray you, keep your seats."

  He might as well have bid the wind be still. They scrambled for the door, jostling each other in their fright and anxiety to be clear of the place.

  In a moment we were left alone with Caesar's body.

  Trebonius entered.

  "Where is Antony?"

  "Fled in terror, though I assured him he was in no danger. But there is general consternation, panic even, in the streets. I could not restrain Antony."

  Markie said, "Very well. We have done what we set out to do. Let us now go, bearing our bleeding swords, to the Capitol, and proclaim to Rome that liberty has been restored."

  He spoke like an actor. I did not protest. It was for this moment that Cassius had been so determined that Markie should be one of us: we would see if he was right.

  I was the last to leave the scene. I looked back at the body: so small and insignificant; so many battles won, so much distance travelled, so much glory, so great renown: all silenced, expunged, concluded in a flurry of knives.

  I almost longed for tears that I might let one fall on Caesar.

  I stood over what had been the Perpetual Dictator.

  "Cruel necessity," I said, and followed the others into the grey of the March morning.

  Chapter 23

  Markie led us from the theatre to the Capitol to give thanks to Jupiter for the deliverance of the city from tyranny. He behaved as if he was enacting a ceremony. In its way it was impressive. I should have preferred that he realised we had in reality effected a coup d'etat, which we still required to secure. Our advantage would be brief if we did not seize it immediately. Some of my friends and colleagues brandished their bloody daggers and cried out, "Liberty! Liberty!"

  For my part I chose to remain silent and watchful. The crowd fell away on either side as we passed, silent, shaken, perhaps reproachful. That did not disturb me. I had never supposed the rabble would applaud us.

  We rendered thanks to Jupiter and the other gods of the Republic. No doubt that was suitable. And then we waited, uncertain how to act. It was still only the fifth hour of the day.

  "Is there any news of Antony?"

  Cicero appeared, wafted there by rumour.

  He congratulated us on having set Rome free.

  "But I wish you had consulted me," he said. "You should have realised my advice would have been invaluable."

  He did not remain long, being uncertain, I suppose, how things would turn out, and reluctant to be too closely associated with the consequences of an act in which he had had no share.

  Other sympathisers made equally brief appearances, nervous, divided between elation and terror.

  Casca yawned, and sent a slave in search of wine.

  "What do we do now, eh?" he said. "Buggered if I know," he added.

  I was dizzy from my wound, unable to think clearly. Two ravens rose from the roof of the Temple of Jupiter and flapped their slow way towards the Tiber.

  Dolabella appeared arrayed in the insignia of the consulship which in other circumstances he would only have assumed when Caesar departed for the Balkans. He, too, neither knew what to say nor whether he should be with us.

  "Have you seen Antony? Where is he? Does anyone know what has become of him?"

  Below us in the Forum the crowd was thickening. A confused babble rose to our ears. I searched for a note of rejoicing.

  I said to Cassius:

  "We are in danger of losing our advantage. This is our hour and we must act on it. We can't sit here and admire our handiwork."

  It was agreed that Markie should address them. The proposal disconcerted him.

  "Why me? It was not my idea. Perhaps Cassius…?"

  "Listen," I said. "You are the man they want to hear. It was you who received all those pleas urging you to be worthy of our ancestor. Well, show us that you are. Cassius may have been our leader. Without him we wouldn't have got where we are. But you, cousin, are the man with the spotless reputation. So, get on with it, or I swear I'll mingle your blood with Caesar's on my dagger."

  Vanity and fear are the two great motivating forces. They snapped at Markie's heels as he descended to the Forum.

  A cheer broke out. He approached the rostrum amidst cries of "Noble Brutus" and suchlike nonsense; encouraging in the circumstances, of course.

  He raised his hand for silence. The murmuring died away. Someone shouted, "Let's hear Brutus… let's hear what the noble Brutus has to say."

  He began to speak. He spoke well, I have to admit that. It is a strange gift, oratory, and one you wouldn't have expected Markie to possess. Of course he wasn't in Cicero's class — there was no music in his voice — and he didn't have even Antony's wild eloquence, but he was effective. If you didn't know him — and of course the mob knew his reputation, not the man himself — you would have said: "This is an honest man. I can rely on him to speak the truth." So close is oratory to acting.

  "Friends," he said, "fellow citizens. This is a day of sun and rain, a day to weep, and a day to rejoice. Hear me out, I urge you, before you pass judgment on what we have done this morning. There are many here who loved Caesar. I count myself among them…"

  He was well-launched. I turned my attention to the crowd. There was a fellow just below me, a big, black-stubbled, sweaty fellow with the look of a butcher, his wrists bloodstained, whose chest heaved with sobs. He tore a dirty rag from around his neck and mopped his eyes. When Markie paused, he raised his head and emitted a bellow of pain, rage, grief, I know not what. A companion passed him a flask. He took a swig and a rivulet of yellow wine ran from the corner of his mouth to his chin. He pursued
it with his tongue and then wiped his chin with the rag, and drank again.

  Markie drew his dagger, and waved it above his head.

  "This knife which slew Caesar is ready to be employed against my own person, should the good of Rome require me to die."

  Perhaps my threat had inspired this dramatic stroke? The crowd roared, madly, contemptibly. Markie was the hero of the moment, stern, just, noble, selfless, everything he would wish to be taken for. I could not but reflect that the same mob would have cheered as loudly to see us strung up, naked, by the heels.

  Cinna, never bright, responded to what he thought to be the mood of the crowd.

  "Caesar was a bloody tyrant," he yelled, "and don't any of you forget it."

  A clod of dung struck him in the face. Other missiles followed, and we withdrew in disorder back to the Capitol.

  Antony had not been idle. When he recovered from his initial moment of terror — quite understandable in my opinion and justified, of course, if I had had my way — and realised that his life was not in immediate danger, he had hastened to Caesar's house. He found Calpurnia in paroxysms of grief, or perhaps fury. He wasted little time in comforting her, the task being as vain as it was unnecessary. Calpurnia was of no importance now. He had never liked her and knew her to be a bitch who would soon find some other man to torment. That poor wretch's state would be worse than Caesar's for he would have to endure comparisons with the dead hero. So Antony brushed her aside and took possession of all Caesar's papers, acting in his capacity as consul. Even Calpurnia couldn't argue with that, though I imagine she tried to do so.

  He summoned a conference of Balbus the banker, Hirtius who was not only Caesar's secretary but consul-designate for the next year, and Lepidus, the Master of the Horse. So he secured to himself money, respectability — nobody being more respectable than Hirtius, who was never shocked, Caesar used to aver, by a dirty joke, because he was too virtuous to see it — and, of the greatest immediate importance, soldiers, since Lepidus commanded the only troops in the immediate vicinity of Rome. Then he sent a message to us, proposing an "armistice" and a peace conference. To show his confidence in our virtue, he entrusted the message to his eighteen-year-old son.

  You had to grant Antony nerve. I compared his energy and confidence with the pusillanimity of my confederates.

  I spent that evening writing letters: to Longina, Octavius and Cicero. You can imagine with what eloquence I argued our case. But I was well aware that I might be dead before darkness fell again.

  I was awakened with the news that Lepidus had stationed three cohorts in the Forum and had reinforced the guards at the city gate. Rome, which we had liberated, was now our prison, if we failed to reach an agreement with Caesar's heirs. Lepidus had the good manners or political sense to send me a note explaining that his only desire was to secure order and prevent riots. He sent a similar note to Markie who found no difficulty in believing him.

  Then, before I was dressed, another note arrived, this time from Antony himself. Its tone was friendly, but I discounted that, for obvious reasons. He had summoned the Senate to meet the following day at the Temple of Tellus: "It is necessary that things be arranged in an orderly and legal manner." The word "legal" was underlined, twice, with bold strokes. He invited Cassius and me to dine with him that evening, adding that Lepidus was issuing a similar invitation to Markie and Metellus Cimber. There was a footnote: "Don't be alarmed by the measures Lepidus has taken. I would have prevented them if I had known his intentions, but the poor fool must play the Great Man. You know what he is like, Mouse."

  I armed the slaves escorting me to Antony's house with truncheons. There had been disturbances in the city. A poet, unhappily named Cinna, had been mistaken for our confederate and bludgeoned to death in an alley. He was, I was later told, a very indifferent poet, but his lame verses scarcely excused his murder.

  Antony was sober, but called for wine as soon as I was announced, and drank a beaker before he entered on conversation.

  "I hadn't taken you for such a fool, Mouse." "I understood from the tone of your letter that there were to be no recriminations, this evening at least." "Granted."

  "Besides, I gave you sufficient indication. I all but openly invited you to join us." "Granted again."

  "Have you heard what Cicero is saying?" "Could I be interested?"

  "You might. He asks whether there was anyone but Antony who did not desire Caesar's death, and is there anyone but Antony who is not happy on account of what has happened? I'm not so certain he is right to make the exception."

  "That's as may be. I'm still amazed you let yourself be led by the nose. By your father-in-law of all men! I would have credited you with too much sense to get involved in such a ham-fisted, botched affair."

  "Thank you, Antony. Certain things would have been better managed if my advice had been taken."

  "Meaning I'd have shared Caesar's fate?"

  "Meaning you'd have been removed from circulation, shall we say."

  "Thanks. But since I'm still in circulation, in my way of looking at it, I'm the man who's got to tidy things up and restore some degree of rational control."

  We might fence like old comrades but the dinner was awkward. It could not fail to be; it was as if Caesar's body lay naked and bleeding on the table while we carved up his inheritance. Hirtius was near weeping.

  "I would never have thought it of you," he said to me, time and again.

  Antony smiled, extended his hand, closed his fingers tight.

  "I could have you all hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, and the mob would yell in glee. Don't think it's beyond me. As consul, I command the armies of Rome."

  "With your colleague Dolabella," Cassius remarked.

  "Don't give me that. Ask Mouse here which of us the soldiers will obey."

  "There's no question."

  "There's Lepidus," Cassius said.

  "If you think I can't control that fool, you're a fool yourself. There never was such a botched business."

  "Hardly that," Cassius said. "Caesar is dead."

  "And your lives are mine. I'm tempted, I admit it. But relax. For now. For one thing your benighted crew includes friends of mine, Mouse here chief of all. Thank the stars you don't believe in, Cassius, that you've got Mouse on your side. Otherwise…"

  He cracked a walnut. The shell shattered.

  "And you all have families, connections. I've no wish to copy Sulla. I agree with Caesar in loathing that example. And I grant that you may too. Otherwise you wouldn't have stopped at Caesar. So: no proscriptions. Rome's had its bellyful of citizens' blood. Besides — this'll shock Hirtius — I wasn't nuts about Caesar myself."

  He beamed on us, and tossed back another mug of wine.

  "Oh, he was a genius, granted. He dazzled me, like he dazzled everyone. But I wasn't crazy about him. Not sure I even liked him."

  "Liking's a pointless word applied to Caesar," I said.

  "Fair enough. Oh I felt his charm. Who again didn't? But — Mouse knows — I agreed with him that the old boy was going off his rocker. This Parthian campaign. Well, thank you for saving us from that. So why did I stick to him? Why did I pretend I didn't understand the hints Mouse dropped? Simple: he may have been heading to be a tyrant, but he wasn't one yet. And he maintained order, which, in spite of my private life, I value as the first public good. Tyranny's more tolerable than civil war. We've all seen too much of that. So that's why you're here. So we can work out how to avoid civil war, how to divvy up the State. All right?"

  Cassius sniffed, as if Antony had emitted a bad smell.

  "You're plausible," he said. "That's why I find it hard to trust you. But I'll try if you can answer me this: that… that charade at the Lupercal. Can you explain that?"

  Antony laughed. I remember wondering if there was any other laughter in Rome that night.

  "Easy. I was playing silly buggers. Besides, it was Himself's idea. He was trying out the people. If it had gone right — for him — what difference
, eh? What's in a name — King, Caesar, Perpetual Dictator — it all comes to the same bloody thing. Besides, I was pissed. You can't hold that against me…"

  At such moments I loved Antony: for his vitality, his refusal to take himself absolutely seriously, for being the opposite of Markie, and — yes, I still say it — a better, more honourable man. For his laughter. Markie couldn't laugh. I am melancholic myself; Antony supplied a lack in me. Then he outlined his proposals. They surprised Cassius, who despised, and therefore failed to understand, him.

  "They'll do," I said, "if you're sincere."

  "Sincere?" Antony laughed. "Do you doubt me? Your old mucker?"

  As we left, Hirtius plucked me by the sleeve.

  "Why? Why? Why, Decimus Brutus? If Caesar loved any man" (it was a big "if" of course) "he loved you. I wish we may be able to rely on Antony, but his judgment, his character… oh dear. But who else is there?"

  "You can rely on me, Hirtius. We have always been friends."

  "Yes," he said. "But you would have spoken the same words to Caesar."

  "I never dared call Caesar friend."

  Resentment, suspicion, fear and rancour poisoned the Senate.

  Tiberius Claudius Nero, partisan in succession of Pompey and Caesar, unstable as water, rose to propose: "Public and exemplary honours for the noble tyrannicides." Some cheered, others shifted in their seats, others howled him down. I was ready to deprecate the motion, t o appease Caesar's friends. But Antony got in first, silencing Nero with a gesture that dismissed the motion without debate: "Neither honours nor punishment." The thing was done, the deed committed; no good would come from dwelling on it. We must look ahead, to ensure the stability of the Republic. Therefore — he brushed a lock of hair aside — the office of dictator should be abolished, that we might never find ourselves in such straits again; all should be confirmed in their offices and appointments, both actual and designate; finally, though it was accepted that Caesar had been killed by honourable and patriotic citizens, nevertheless all his acts — even projects as yet unpublished — should have the force of law.