The Ides of March

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  They had had every right to murder him; the despot had been justly punished according to the laws of the state. They should thus be immediately absolved of any criminal charges, since they had acted – at their own risk and peril – for the common good. He proposed, therefore, an amnesty for all those involved, and despite some disappointed grumbling, a vote was taken and this was approved.

  But it was not enough to satisfy him. After exchanging a few words in an undertone with Cassius, Cicero said, ‘This unhappy time, this dark age of the republic, must be forgotten as soon as possible. The body of the tyrant must be buried as soon as possible, in private and at night. Such a burial should be considered an act of piety towards a dead man and nothing more.’

  A murmur of protest rippled around the room.

  It was the turn of Caesar’s supporters to speak now and Munatius Plancus took the floor.

  ‘We shall allow posterity to judge whether what happened at Pompey’s Curia was an act of justice. Those of us who were friends of Caesar are grieving and living a moment of bitter sorrow, but we are prepared to disregard these emotions so as not to fuel an endless round of hatred and revenge.

  ‘I would like to draw attention to the courage and generosity of consul Mark Antony. Distressed and saddened as he is over the death of a friend he loved deeply, he has refrained from taking revenge and has even offered his own sons as hostages, so that all quarrels and conflicts may come to an end, so that no more Roman lives are taken, so that the menace of a disastrous new civil war may be averted. I move that he be paid public tribute and that he be invited to make his thoughts known, here and now, within these sacred walls.’

  Plancus’s proposal won a large majority of votes. Everyone was terrified at the prospect of a new civil war. Antony thus took the floor and began to speak.

  ‘Conscript fathers! I thank you for having recognized my efforts and my commitment. I myself voted in favour of your request that amnesty be granted to Brutus, Cassius, Trebonius and their companions. But I cannot accept that Caesar be buried at night and in secret, as if he were a criminal. He did make mistakes, although his hand was forced at times. He sought to solve Rome’s problems through negotiations and dialogue on innumerable occasions and he did all he could to prevent Roman blood from being spilled.’

  A burst of indignant protest rose from the group that supported Brutus, Cassius and Cicero, and Antony swiftly changed his tactics.

  ‘If you don’t want to believe this, how can you not believe in what the man accomplished? He expanded the borders of the Roman Empire all the way to the waves of the Ocean. He subjugated the Celts and Germans, and he dared to raise the Eagle on ground never before trodden by Roman feet: the remote land of Britannia. He defeated Pharnaces and added the kingdom of Pontus to our dominions. He approved a great number of laws to help and sustain the populace. He filled our coffers with immense treasures pillaged in the territories he conquered. He promulgated measures to defend the provinces but also to punish local governors who were incapable or corrupt. Do you believe that the tomb of the man who will be forever remembered for having carried out such glorious enterprises should be hidden in some obscure site, his funeral kept a secret?

  ‘No, conscript fathers! You must grant me this. Allow me to celebrate his funeral and to read his will in public. His testament, at least, will help us to understand if we have acted justly or if the last honours I wish to attribute to him are undeserved.’

  Upon hearing these words, Cicero hissed at Cassius, ‘What did I tell you? If you allow him to celebrate Caesar’s funeral and read his will, your undertaking will have been in vain! You must absolutely prevent him from doing so.’

  But Brutus disagreed. As Antony continued with his fervent plea, he replied, ‘No, you’re wrong, Marcus Tullius. Antony has always been a man of his word. He left his sons in our hands, he dispersed the hostile crowd that had formed on the Capitol and he voted in favour of our amnesty. We are men of honour and we must behave as such. Antony is brave and valiant. We must not turn him into our enemy. We shall convince him to join us, in order to restore the authority of the republic and the liberty of the Roman people. Trust me. If he were not well meaning, he would already have unleashed the legion camped outside the walls on us. It would have been easy for him to do away with us in no time. But he didn’t. All he’s asking for is a funeral and we have to allow it.’

  Brutus was adamant, and if Brutus voted in favour of the motion, the others could not vote against it.

  Cicero, outraged and impotent, snapped at Brutus, ‘You will see! This will be no ordinary funeral!’

  But the proposal was approved and the session ended.

  Romae, a.d. XVII Kal. Apr.-a.d. XIV Kal. Apr.

  Rome, 16–19 March

  ANTONY HAD Caesar’s body transported to the Campus Martius, where it lay on an ivory bier draped in purple and gold, near the tomb of his daughter Julia, born of his second wife, Cornelia. Behind the bier he had raised a shrine in gilded wood that perfectly reproduced the Temple of Venus Genetrix. Inside the shrine he hung the robes that Caesar had been wearing on the Ides of March, arranged so that the dagger slashes and the bloodstains were in plain view for all to see.

  He had the shrine surrounded by a maniple of surly legionaries of the Ninth in full combat order, so that no one dared to approach.

  The procession of people bringing gifts to be burned on his funeral pyre began. A long, long line of men and women of the Roman populace, of veterans, of friends. There were even some senators and knights. Some threw in precious objects, others a simple, early-spring flower. Many wept, others regarded in silence the lifeless body of the greatest Roman ever to have lived.

  The body lay in state for three days and then the funeral began. The coffin was hoisted on to the shoulders of the magistrates in office and escorted by hundreds of legionaries in parade dress, led by officers wearing their red cloaks and crested helmets, to the sound of bugles and trumpets, and to the sombre, rhythmic beating of drums. Two soldiers at the fore held up the hanger with Caesar’s bloody tunic as a kind of trophy. His wife, Calpurnia, trailed behind, weeping, helped along by her maidservants.

  Tension mounted with every step, reaching a peak when a theatrical machine was drawn up alongside the coffin. Gears were set in motion and a likeness of Caesar’s naked body was raised up high: a wax statue with twenty-three wounds reproduced in gory detail, dripping with a vermilion stain that looked just like blood. In this way, even those who had not seen his corpse could witness the devastation wreaked on Caesar’s body.

  In the Forum, in a clearing quite close to the Domus Publica, wood had been piled for the pyre. The bier was placed upon it. A leaden silence fell on the crowded square.

  An actor recited the verses of a great poet:

  I spared their lives

  So they could kill me!

  This gave rise to an explosion of indignant shouting that grew even louder when a crier read out the words of the senatus consultum in which the senators had sworn to defend Caesar with their own lives. Curses and insults rang from every corner of the square.

  Then two centurions appeared, armed to the teeth: Publius Sextius, known as ‘the Cane’, and Silius Salvidienus. Each held a torch and took up position beside the pyre.

  Antony mounted the Rostra and raised a hand to request silence from the already agitated crowd, which was seething with violent emotions that threatened to spill over at any moment.

  Brutus, hidden at the far end of the square, behind the trees of the Iuturna fountain, could see even at this distance the grotesque wax image of Caesar stabbed. He could hear in his mind the words that Caesar had said to him with his last breath, as Brutus had thrust his dagger into Caesar’s groin. ‘Even you . . .’

  He instantly understood what Cicero had meant to say at the session at the Temple of Tellus. All was lost. Nothing could stop a new, bloody civil war from breaking out.

  All at once, in the sudden, mortal silence, Antony’s voice ra
ng out.

  ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen! I have come to bury Caesar!’

  Epilogue

  DECIUS SCAURUS and his companions, thwarted by the fury of Publius Sextius and deprived of the leadership of Mustela, had continued on their mission, but they never succeeded in closing in on the centurion, who had escaped down the parallel paths of the Apennines. Too late, however, for meeting his appointment with destiny.

  Three days later they found the body of their commander, Sergius Quintilianus, at the side of the Via Cassia. His life had ended in combat.

  They paid their last respects to him, simply, then burned his body on a pyre of woody vines. They threw their weapons into the fire as a final homage to his memory.

  They brought his ashes back to the villa and buried them together with those of his son, at the foot of an old cypress, so they could rest, finally united, in the kingdom of shadows.

  Author’s Note

  This novel tells a true story, a story which is at once familiar and shocking, by focusing on the date of its tragic conclusion: the Ides of March, that is, 15 March, 44 BC.

  On that day, Julius Caesar, the greatest Roman, was assassinated.

  Much has been said about his death and the enigmatic, difficult-to-explain events that accompanied it. The true motives of the conspirators have long been debated as well. The central question is the same one we ask ourselves today: is civil liberty preferable to security and the promise of peace?

  Caesar’s assassination was preceded by a long, bloody period of civil war, rife with political and institutional chaos. Caesar stepped forward as the person who could re-establish concord, peace, a stable government. But in exchange, the people of Rome would have to accept restrictions of their civil rights. The conspirators thus believed that they had good reason to kill Caesar. They considered the act virtuous in that it would serve to bring down a tyrant, or even nip a return to monarchy in the bud.

  The fact is that Caesar’s assassination was futile. The ruling classes of the time effectively deprived themselves of the best of their leaders without succeeding in offsetting a new era of ferocious civil wars and without stopping the ascent of a monocratic imperial system of power.

  To take on such a complex historical moment in a novel may seem facile, and in part it certainly is.

  But an emotional reading of such dramatic events allows us to step inside a crucial time in western history, to relive the passions that animated the era and the conflicts that tore it apart, to meet the characters who were the leading players and the forces behind them. It allows us to imagine the nuances of their personalities, the contradicting urges that moved them.

  History is, in fact, always moulded by passions such as hate, love, greed, frustration, disappointment, fanaticism, the desire for power and the thirst for revenge, rather than by rational reflection, philosophical meditation and ethical motivations.

  This event, which inspired Shakespeare in one of his most masterful plays, reeks with violence and pathos at every turn. A maelstrom of contrasting forces come together to turn a murder into an epoch-making event. The Ides of March was one of those times when the river of history overflows its narrow banks, rushing, seething, carrying off any obstacle that lies in its way, like that chaotic force which the Greeks called meaning ‘necessity’ or ‘ineluctability’ that nothing and no one can govern until it finds enough room to spread out freely again and flow forward in peace.

  Caesar’s story mirrors the greatness and the meanness of power and its illusions. In the end a man’s body lies lifeless, pierced by twenty-three dagger wounds, while the ‘victors’ have already lost and even been condemned. And this because history follows a path that neglects to consider the plans, dreams and desires of men, a path that is, finally, in great part a mystery.

  THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE of this novel concentrates on the eight days preceding the Ides of March, associating figures who actually existed with fictional characters.

  The race from Cisalpine Gaul to Rome of Publius Sextius and his pursuers visits places, including some stations and inns, which are actually mentioned in ancient itineraries (notably the Tabula Peutingeriana), a thirteenth-century copy of an ancient Roman map that showed all the military routes of the Empire, currently conserved at the Hofbibliothek of Vienna) along with others that are fictitious. The cursus publicus, that is, the Roman Empire’s postal system, was established by Augustus. Thus in Caesar’s time it did not yet exist, but we can assume that basic structures like the inns (cauponae), way stations (mansiones) and horse-changing stations (mutationes) were already in use.

  As far as the correspondence between Cicero and Atticus is concerned, although a number of their letters have been preserved and published, the ones appearing here are wholly imaginary.

  VMM.

  Characters

  ANTISTIUS – Caesar’s doctor. The character is inspired by the doctor of the same name who, according to Suetonius (Caesar 82) autopsied the murdered dictator’s body. He concluded that only one of all twenty-three stab wounds was fatal – the second.

  ARTEMIDORUS of Cnidus – The character is inspired by a Greek teacher who actually existed. He frequented the home of Brutus and was familiar with some of the other conspirators. On the Ides of March he handed Caesar a scroll with a list of the conspirators, but Caesar, pressed by the throng, never opened it. He was holding it in his hand when he was murdered.

  BAEBIUS Carbo – Fictional character. Legionary stationed at an inn and postal-exchange station. Naive and a bit presumptuous, he takes his responsibilities to legendary front-line centurion Publius Sextius, known as ‘the Cane’, so seriously that he is over-zealous in his reaction to Rufus and impedes him from carrying out his mission.

  CAIUS CASSIUS LONGINUS – Conspirator. Representative of the most extremist elements of the conspiracy and organizer of the same, along with Brutus. Quaestor under Crassus in the East during the Parthian War (53 BC), he survived the rout of the Battle of Carrhae. He later became a supporter of Pompey but, like many others, reconciled with Caesar and was nominated praetor peregrinus (magistrate for foreign residents) in 44 BC. After the Ides, the Senate made him governor of Syria. In 42 BC, certain that his side had lost at Philippi, he committed suicide. He was a devotee of Epicurean philosophy.

  CAIUS SERVILIUS Casca – Conspirator. Brother of Publius, he killed himself after the battle of Philippi in 42 BC.

  CAIUS TREBONIUS – Conspirator. A general and veteran of the Gallic War, he commanded the siege of Marseilles (Massilia) and was responsible for the repression of Pompey’s supporters in Spain. The year before the conspiracy, at Narbonne (Narbo), he had informed Antony of the plot to murder Caesar, putting both men in an embarrassing position, since Antony apparently kept the plot secret. On the Ides of March it was he – according to Cicero and Plutarch – who chatted with Antony to prevent him from entering the Senate. The governor of Asia, he was killed at Smyrna on the orders of P. Cornelius Dolabella, proconsul of Syria and sympathizer of Mark Antony.

  CALPURNIA – Caesar’s wife, daughter of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. According to Plutarch (Caesar 63) she was an honourable, intelligent woman. The day before the Ides of March, she had a premonition of her husband’s murder and tried in vain to stop Caesar from going to the Senate. She is said to have always remained faithful to his memory.

  CANIDIUS – Fictional character. Brutus’s head servant, distinguished by his blind obedience and his perfidious ransacking of Artemidorus’s library.

  CASSIUS PARMENSIS – Played a secondary role in the conspiracy. After fighting at Philippi in 42 BC at Brutus’s side, he joined up first with Sextus Pompey and later with Antony. In 31 BC, after Actium, he fled to Athens where he was murdered by a hired killer probably working for Octavian. He was probably the last of the conspirators to die. A respected man of letters, he was mentioned by Horace in his Epistles (I, 4).

  CLEOPATRA VII – The last queen of Egypt. Universally acknowledged to be a woman of great char
m and beauty, she probably had considerable political skills as well. Daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes, she was meant to govern Egypt with her younger brother and husband Ptolemy XIII, who was a minor at the time. Achillas, the royal prefect and army commander (responsible for Pompey’s murder), was keen to safeguard his own claim to power and forced Cleopatra to flee to Alexandria, where she became Caesar’s lover. She gave birth to Ptolemy Caesar, known as Caesarion (little Caesar’), and had grand designs for the child’s future. The queen’s immense ambitions were frustrated by Caesar’s assassination. She returned to Egypt and found a new, powerful protector in Antony, whom she married in 37 BC. The ill-fated naval battle against Octavian in 31 BC at Actium forced first Antony, and then Cleopatra, to commit suicide. She dramatically poisoned herself by inducing an asp to bite her.

  DECIMUS JUNIUS BRUTUS ALBINUS – Conspirator. Caesar’s trusted friend, listed among the heirs in his will. A general, he was one of Caesar’s most valiant officers and distinguished himself in several campaigns, playing a key role in the siege of Marseilles (Massilia) as commander of the fleet. Praetor in 45 and 44 BC; Caesar had designated him consul in 42 BC. He was instrumental in the success of the conspiracy, personally persuading a reluctant Caesar to go to the Senate on the Ides of March. After the War of Modena (Mutina) the following year against Antony, his position became untenable and he tried to reach Brutus and Cassius in Macedonia, but was assassinated on his way there.