Three's Company

by Alfred Duggan

  ‘I would enjoy a little opposition, and so would my soldiers. If we encounter no enemies it looks as though we shall be driven to plunder our friends,’ said Antonius with a sigh. ‘All the same, your plan is a good one. Back to the camp, Lepidus. Caesar, will you sup with me tonight? No? How very sensible. I’m an honest man myself, but some faithful praetorian might be tempted to cut your throat.’

  Once again he made way for the Pontifex Maximus to precede him on the narrow path; but when they reached open ground the two Consulars walked arm-in-arm, equal colleagues and familiar friends.

  Refusing a pressing invitation from Antonius, Lepidus supped alone in his headquarters. He then sent for Eunomus, to discuss with his secretary the proposals he should lay before the meeting next morning. The Greek was a stimulating companion. His deft flattery always increased his patron’s self-confidence. But tonight Lepidus needed no encouragement; he was already intoxicated by gratified ambition.

  ‘I never once asked for anything,’ he repeated. ‘Caesar offered, without prompting; and when it was put to him Antonius agreed without demur, though I am sure that when he set out for the island the idea had not entered his head. Surely that is public recognition of my innate ability? What is it Aristotle says about the Magnanimous Man? That he is worthy of a great position, and knows himself to be worthy of it? Just so do I feel myself to be worthy of ruling Rome. I am not conceited. It is very remarkable, in its way, that my talents have been thus recognized although I have done nothing outstanding. Antonius is a skilful soldier, Caesar controls the assembly of the people; both have a host of loving supporters. I have none of these advantages. My soldiers like me, I suppose; but I am not extravagantly popular. I was elected Consul, but only on Caesar’s recommendation. Yet when two very powerful men agree to divide the world between them, they spontaneously ask me to be the third, the arbiter of their quarrels.’

  ‘My lord, of course you are not conceited. What you have just said proves your innate modesty. Lucky Rome, where such merit can be found, and where such merit is recognized! If the citizens of Miletus had been equally far-sighted they would have remembered to bribe the tax-collectors, and I would never have been sold into slavery.’

  To himself Eunomus reflected that a question had been settled which had long puzzled him. Luck was the prime mover of the universe, not intelligence or courage. Well, if he himself had met with undeserved misfortune, he was now private secretary to the luckiest member of the human race; there might be a future in that.

  ‘Now, Eunomus, what shall I propose tomorrow? We are going to parcel out our responsibilities, each assuming the task for which he is best fitted. I want to come to the meeting with my mind made up. It’s time I took the initiative and gave advice unasked. Today the others did all the talking, and I merely agreed when they sought my opinion.’

  ‘No more of that, my lord. If you always agree you will not remain equal with your colleagues, and if you disagree they might combine against you. You must make proposals of your own. Yet you should propose what will please Antonius and Caesar; they will admire your wisdom the more. Now let me see. There are two main tasks to be undertaken. Someone must lead an army against Brutus and Cassius, someone must rule Rome.’

  ‘I don’t want to fight Brutus if I can avoid it. He is my wife’s half-brother, and I should feel scruples about killing him.’

  ‘Besides, Cassius is a very fine soldier,’ Eunomus could not help answering, though it was the merest common sense to keep his patron in a good humour. ‘I think it would be prudent to leave the rough work of butchery to Antonius, who delights in it and does it well. Tomorrow you must propose that Marcus Antonius shall lead the great army of revenge. Offer him the pick of your legions; if you don’t they will desert you to follow his Eagles anyway, and by offering you lay him under an obligation. That is the obvious move, and they will be expecting it. Your second proposal is rather more subtle, and I must explain what lies behind it. You should suggest that young Caesar Octavianus rules in Rome, while you govern the barbarian west.’

  ‘Eh, what’s that? I don’t like it. If I do that I renounce my equal rank.’

  ‘My lord, Caesar will not accept, though your offer lays him also under an obligation. Consider. In the field Caesar has never done anything, except guard his own camp while two Consuls died gallantly outside Mutina. His only power lies in the devotion of his soldiers, and so far he has done nothing to earn it. He dare not allow Antonius to win more glory. He will insist on marching with him to the east. But someone must rule the City. Therefore both your colleagues will beg you to stay behind and govern Rome, while they make war in Asia. No one will be surprised if only one of them returns. But even if they don’t quarrel they will come back, after several years, to find you chief of the Senate and leader of the assembly. You will allot the farms to veterans, you will control the treasury. You will be very powerful.’

  ‘That’s a clever move, and I would never have thought of it. But then I am only a simple, bluff Roman.’

  Thanks to this prompting, at next day’s meeting Lepidus had everything his own way. It soon became apparent that his colleagues thought only of the war against the Optimates; Antonius offered to lead the expedition, and Caesar insisted on sharing the burden. Neither was anxious to wear a toga in Rome while his rival marched in armour at the head of the legions. Both combined to press the task on Lepidus; he was able to accept what he wanted, with the air of one conferring a favour.

  The other principal topic of discussion was the legal foundation of the new régime. Young Caesar showed a grasp of the niceties of constitutional law remarkable in one of his tender years. He was firm that they must not break the law; instead, the law must be altered. He had a draft ready, a bill setting up tres viri reipublicae constituendae, three men to restore the state; their commission would run for five years from next January, but of course it could be renewed later. With affairs in such confusion, five years was far enough to plan ahead. The ordinary magistracies would continue, under the supervision of the Triumvirs. Caesar offered to resign his promised Consulship, since he would be out of Italy for most of the year; instead Lepidus was again to be Consul, with Caesar’s insignificant cousin Quintus Pedius as colleague. To cement the alliance more firmly, the young bachelor offered to marry any female connexion of Antonius; but since Marcus Lepidus the younger was already betrothed to the only unmarried daughter, he had to be content with Clodia, daughter of Fulvia and Clodius and now stepdaughter of Antonius. As Antonius remarked cheerfully to Lepidus, walking back to camp from this second meeting, the boy could not have been more eager to keep on good terms with his elders if he had been a client. Accidentally, he had come by a powerful name; among experienced politicians he was out of his class.

  At the third day’s meeting Lepidus revised this opinion. There was more in young Caesar than met the eye. Perhaps he still lacked the ability to make broad plans, as was natural in one of his youth; but once the plans had been sketched by his elders he had a good administrative mind for filling in the details.

  By this time the Triumvirs had settled into a routine, as though it was quite natural to govern the world from a swampy islet, under a weeping November sky. They met in a weatherproof hut, with comfortable office-chairs for the principals and desks for the secretaries. A field-kitchen provided hot food and mulled wine; and a crowd of civilian servants and clerks had replaced the grim bodyguards of the first day. This was planned to be the last meeting before they marched to take over the government of Rome. The agenda was short and simple: what was to be the fate of their Optimate adversaries?

  When they were comfortably settled Antonius called on Lepidus to speak first. Nobody had appointed Antonius chairman, but he normally took charge of any meeting at which he was present; his character was forceful and his self-confidence unbounded. Young Caesar hung back in the presence of his elders, and Lepidus was slow to collect his thoughts.

  On this matter he had made up his mind. Besides, he ha
d run through his speech the night before, with Eunomus for audience. He spoke briefly, anxious to impress these rivals with his speed in making a definite decision.

  ‘The murderers of Caesar must be killed. They are guilty of the death of a fellow-citizen, of sacrilege in that they laid hands on the Pontifex Maximus, of disturbing a session of the Senate; all capital crimes. Luckily they are now in arms against us; I suppose most of them will be killed in battle, or will kill themselves to avoid capture. Perhaps none of them will be taken alive, especially if we announce beforehand that they cannot hope for quarter. That would be the happiest solution. Since the bad old days of Sulla no Roman has been executed for a political offence. If we execute even the most guilty we will shock many citizens, and perhaps lose votes in the assembly. As to the other Optimates, political opponents who have not stained their hands with murder – well, we are Caesarians. Our great leader pardoned any Roman who was willing to submit.’

  ‘That’s all very fine and large,’ said Antonius. ‘I’m for clemency myself, and for drinking with pardoned adversaries until they become my friends. But Lepidus has forgotten one very important point. I must have a lot of money as soon as I reach Rome. My soldiers are devoted to me; one reason for their devotion is that they expect me to make them rich. Unless we plunder the Optimates I don’t see where we shall find money; though perhaps we don’t have to kill them after we have robbed them.’

  ‘Yes, we must,’ said young Caesar decisively. ‘If you steal a man’s property you make him into a dangerous enemy. That was Sulla’s mistake, to confiscate land for his veterans and leave the original farmers alive. All Italy has been filled with dispossessed countrymen, or their grandsons, ever since. I found them useful to fill my legions, but they will join anyone who attacks the established order. Every enemy of society, from Catalina to Milo, has raised an armed band in Picenum or Etruria. I have a plan to settle these men in colonies overseas, but we must not add to their number.’

  ‘And our Optimate enemies are not rustic farmers. They are experienced magistrates, accustomed to command in war,’ said Lepidus, before he had thought out the implications of this remark. As realization came to him he continued: ‘Oh dear, I hope that doesn’t mean we must kill them. Perhaps Antonius can find his money in some other way.’

  ‘Not in the quantities he will need,’ said Caesar with a thin smile. ‘Quite a lot of money was stored in the temple of Ops, the savings of my lamented father during a lifetime of service to the republic. It barely sufficed Antonius for one year.’

  ‘There was a crisis, my dear son-in-law-to-be,’ Antonius said hastily. ‘There was the assembly to be bribed, and the expense of a splendid funeral. That is not my normal scale of expenditure. All the same,’ he added with a grin, ‘I like to know there is money behind me, and I must provide for fierce and greedy swordsmen. Rather than go hungry, the legions will take his wealth even from a proved Caesarian. Must we sell our ancestral lands to provide bounties for our own veterans? One other point. Twice Caesar pardoned Marcus Brutus, and Cassius at least once. Did such clemency prove a sound policy?’

  ‘No one proposes to pardon the murderers,’ exclaimed Lepidus. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. We must not pardon men who will murder us afterwards.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said young Caesar formally, ‘we must follow one of two paths. Either we offer forgiveness to every adversary who did not wield a dagger on the Ides of March, or we must make such a clearance of our enemies that not one is left to carry on the feud. It would be fatal to show ourselves ruthless, and then to draw back halfway. It must be all or nothing. I myself favour clemency; but I am willing to be persuaded.’

  ‘Let us call things by their true names,’ Antonius said impatiently. ‘I want to take all the money of a lot of rich men, and I shall feel more secure if I kill them when I rob them. Besides, in the history-books confiscation of the goods of convicted felons looks much better than plain theft.’

  ‘But that means a proscription,’ Lepidus wailed in dismay. ‘You young men grew up in security. I can remember Sulla’s reign of terror. The citizens will never forgive us for bringing back the proscription, and it’s a foul business anyway. It always gets out of hand, with subordinates making away with their private enemies, and informers inventing evidence for the sake of the reward. We seek special powers to reform the state, not to murder the most eminent of our fellow-citizens; and half the Optimate leaders are related to me by blood or marriage. It’s bad enough that I must make war on my brother-in-law, Brutus, and my wife’s brother-in-law, Cassius Longinus. Must I also hunt down every other nobleman who has been considered worthy to marry into the gens Aemilia?’

  ‘Alliances of blood and marriage are very good things in their way,’ Antonius answered coolly. ‘They help a young man at the outset of his career. But when you have come a certain distance you must ignore them. For example, your Marcus Brutus fought for Pompeius, though years before Pompeius had murdered his father. You may be sure Brutus has never done anything that seemed to him wrong.’

  ‘If you alone are governed by family affection, you will be handicapped in dealing with your equals,’ added Caesar. ‘I suppose you want to save your brother Paullus. Do you know that he was the Senator who moved that you be declared a public enemy when you joined Antonius? I was in Rome at the time, and I heard him.’

  Both stared together at Lepidus, willing him to consent to the massacre. He was conscious of their gaze, Antonius amused and quizzical, Caesar stern and speculative. It came to him anew that he had nothing in common with these men. They were utterly rapacious, bound by no scruple, determined to get to the top; he was a God-fearing patrician, anxious to walk in the honourable ways of the ancestors. But they had chosen him to be their equal colleague. He was offered power, greater power than any Aemilius had held in the past. Besides, the City had changed since his boyhood. These were representatives of the younger generation, men who looked clear-eyed at the beastliness of the modern world, to pick their way in safety past its pitfalls. He must not show himself a stuffy old fogy. To cure the distempers of the modern republic, modern surgery was needed.

  ‘Very well,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I vote, with Antonius, for a new proscription.’

  ‘That makes us two to one, Caesar. By the terms of our compact you are bound to accept the decision of the majority.’

  ‘I agree, with a heavy heart,’ said Caesar. ‘You have convinced me that no other course is open to us. On one point, however, I am determined. Rome can stand one more proscription; it must be the last, within the lifetime of the youngest of us. If ever we repeat it, all confidence will vanish. Therefore …’ he paused, and Antonius completed the sentence for him.

  ‘Therefore we must finish the banquet without any leftovers, eh, my Caesar? We must be ruthless, even to our nearest and dearest? That goes without saying. In addition we must take care not to overlook the dangerous but obscure, since this dose of medicine cannot be repeated.’

  ‘I would go further,’ said Caesar. ‘We think of the Optimates as our only foes. We should bear in mind that Caesarians can be dangerous also. Anyone whom we cannot trust absolutely must be eliminated, even though he fought gallantly from the Rubicon right up to Munda. Most of my father’s murderers were discontented Caesarians. Let there be no exceptions. We each of us can think of at least one prominent opponent whom it would be pleasant to spare. For example, I like Cicero as a man, and in the past he has helped me. But once we begin making exceptions we shall find something to be said in favour of everyone; and then our reign of terror will never get started.’

  ‘No mercy for Cicero,’ Antonius said firmly. ‘He was very rude to my dear Fulvia. I have promised her his head.’

  ‘My brother must die, I see that,’ put in Lepidus, determined to show himself a clear-sighted realistic tyrant, like the men in the Greek history-books. He must prove his fitness for supreme power. This was not the code of the ancestors; but then none of his ancestors had been offered a place in
a Triumvirate.

  ‘Gallantly spoken, old boy,’ said Antonius, slapping him on the back. ‘Just to prove that I also am selfless when the welfare of the republic demands it, I contribute the head of my uncle, Lucius Caesar. He’s a kinsman of yours too, young Caesar, isn’t he? So perhaps he can stand in addition for your sacrifice of family feeling to the common cause.’

  Caesar bared his teeth in a smile which showed almost insolently that he was not amused. ‘Cicero is my contribution, and worth more than any of yours. Incidentally, I gave him my word of honour that he would be safe; so I sacrifice something more precious than family feeling.’

  ‘Ah well, our country must come first. Cicero goes, and all his house with him. He’s not really rich, for a Consular; but if you add in his brother and his nephews the Tullians will contribute something to my pay-chest.’ That was Antonius, of course.

  ‘What about your allies, Antonius?’ asked the unsmiling boy. ‘I mean Plancus and Pollio. We mustn’t give them the chance to desert us, in pious horror at our bloody deeds. They are rogues, out only for what they can get; but we should commit them to our side, if we can.’

  ‘Them? Nothing easier. Plancus envies his brother Plotius, who is a little bit too rich. He will be pleased to see that head on a pole, and when he has put it there the other side won’t have him even if he tries to join them. Pollio is slightly more honest, though not enough to hurt. But he quarrelled with his father-in-law about his wife’s dowry. I think a quarrel with Pollio ought to have fatal consequences, don’t you? We can find other victims, until all the prominent army-leaders are committed to our cause.’

  ‘Then all is settled, in principle. But the arrests must be planned with care. I suggest we go into that this afternoon. Let no one leave the island until our orders have been written and sealed. I am thinking especially of our secretaries, who are as venal as all freedmen of that class.’ Caesar looked round with a thin-lipped smirk, and the waiting secretaries wilted under his eye.