The Classical World

by Robin Lane Fox

  Of popular reactions, there was now no doubt. In Caesar's absence, with grain scarce, there had been discontent, but on his return the people were to be treated to the most amazing of all Roman triumphs, in a celebration of four victories at once. For four days in August 46 great processions passed through Rome, including a statue of Cleo­patra beside Caesar's own ancestral goddess Venus (it survived in Rome for at least two centuries). There were the usual jokes by followers in order to keep the triumphing general's feet on the ground, about his supposed sex with King Nicomedes (it had to be an old joke, because there had been no homosexuality in Caesar's life then or since) or, more ominously, about Caesar as 'bad boy' and 'king'. At the games afterwards, there were animal hunts and even Rome's first sighting of a giraffe. After the concluding banquet on the fourth day, Caesar, still in slippers, was escorted from his newly planned Forum by a popular crowd and even by elephants bearing torches. It was all hugely expensive, and when a few of his soldiers protested, they were put to death: the heads of two of them were nailed up by priests on the 'royal house' in the Forum.12 So it was as well that there were to be massive payments for the soldiers (an entire lifetime's pay) and even a payment for every single citizen. Loot from the provinces was paying for them, not least the plunder which had been collected from Spain and Asia in the Civil War of the past two years. The spending was to exceed even the final year of Alexander the Great, a tribute to Caesar's massive plundering.

  More permanently, there were to be great new buildings, a temple to Mars, the biggest ever, the huge new Forum (never finished in his lifetime), a temple to mother Venus (dedicated in September), a statue of Caesar on horseback in front of it in which both Caesar and his beloved horse (now fourteen years old) were modelled in the likenesses of Alexander and the great Bucephalas. So much, at last, for Caesar's alleged tears of regret over Alexander's glory in Cadiz in 69 bc. When the Venus temple was dedicated, Caesar celebrated two evocative rituals: a 'Troy Game' on horseback for young participants, suppos­edly tracing back to his ancestor Aeneas, and funeral games for his daughter Julia, who had died back in 54.13 In her honour, gladiators fought in the Forum: the 'Troy Game's' riders may perhaps have been led by a young unknown quantity, his adopted great-nephew, Octavian. Nobody could have imagined that this boy, some twenty years later, would repeat such games for himself.

  Even so, for Cicero there were still flickering hopes that a republic would somehow be restored. As a dictator for a fixed term, Caesar was appointed nominally to 'settle the res publico.' (the 'state' or the 'republic'). In the Senate, during the summer, there had been a sudden wonderful pardon for noble Marcus Marcellus, the man who as consul in 50 bc had insisted on Caesar's return from Gaul. Cicero was cheered by the event and hailed Caesar's 'justice', but a pardon, like all Caesar's power, depended on one man's 'will, or shall I say "whim"?'14 Senators had grovelled to receive it. In fact, the beneficiary of the pardon was killed in Greece before he ever enjoyed it, and some said his death was on Caesar's orders. As Cicero makes plain at the time, Caesar was still afraid of conspirators against himself. When a mime-writer, Laberius, put a play on with the words, 'Citizens, we have lost liberty', Caesar preferred to do nothing against him.15

  In December 46 trouble did break out, but it was in Spain, not in the Senate. Pompey had left two brave sons there and one of them, Gnaeus, led a major rebellion in Spain, forcing Caesar into one more Civil War which was probably his most dangerous. It was fought in rough terrain with difficult supplies and determined enemies. On 17 March 45 bc Caesar won decisively at Munda, although he had to rally his troops personally, jumping from his horse and shaming them into standing firm; he had really thought it was his last hour. It proved the last, instead, for Gnaeus Pompey, although the other son of Pompey, Sextus, was left at large. Caesar never imagined that Sextus would have a political future, so he left him, settled veterans in Spain and returned to Rome.

  In his absence, meanwhile, it is Cicero's difficulties which we know best, not just his admirable sense of a real loss of freedom but diffi­culties, too, in his family. After quarrels, Cicero had divorced his long-standing wife, Terentia; he had always disliked his latest son-in-law, Dolabella, and now the bounder was putting up a statue to Cicero's blackest enemy, Clodius. In the years since returning to Italy, Cicero had been struggling to pay his beloved daughter Tullia's proper dowry (for her third marriage); he had been reduced to handing it over in instalments. Now his daughter was wanting a divorce from Dolabella anyway. Friends, meanwhile, found Cicero a second wife, Publilia, a rich young woman: his first wife said the marriage was all for sex. Then Tullia died after childbirth, throwing him into extreme grief. He had loved her so dearly; he even planned to build her a temple (not a tomb) on ground which is now near the Vatican in Rome. But Julius Caesar took the ground first. Then Cicero's second wife Publilia turned out to be a mistake, not least for the reason that she was jealous of his grief and love for his daughter. So Cicero backed quickly out of the cul-de-sac and wisely divorced her.

  Through his letters we can follow identifiable stages of his extreme 'grieving process' for Tullia. We can also read a classic letter to him, sent by the politician and lawyer Sulpicius Rufus.16 It is an extraordinary text, which is at first sight deeply moving: it expresses Sulpicius' awareness, while sailing past the coastline of Greece, of the disasters which had brought many of the old cities in Greece so low. Tullia, he reminds Cicero, was only one person, whereas these cities had lost so many. But in fact, this 'consolation' is very far from what we would nowadays expect. Sulpicius and Cicero agree that the real tragedy is the contemporary death of the Republic. Young Tullia was lucky, we read, to have died first, and the loss of the Republic is so much more regrettable than the loss of just one daughter. There could be no more vivid instance of a political Roman's priorities and the balance between male freedom and domestic loss.

  Books, at least, persisted for Cicero, his honoured, beloved com­panions. At Rome, Caesar was planning to build the first public library (having burned down so much of Alexandria's) and to appoint the hugely learned Varro as its librarian, although Varro, Pompey's assis­tant, had opposed Caesar in Spain in 49. In his grief, Cicero turned to writing a spate of new books of his own, on the gods, on aspects of religion, on the history of oratory and above all on philosophy (as the creator of a new Latin vocabulary for Greek philosophy) and on the sceptical theories to which he inclined. His letters of these months remind us of his extraordinary mental range, but also of his love for his various country villas and their woods and grounds (one, even, had an area called the Academy): he had a real affinity here with the eighteenth-century English gentlemen who would so admire him. His philosophy was more encyclopedic than original, and none of it would ever have been written if he could have had the continuing thrill of a free political career, speaking, attacking and being his 'own man'. But his first philosophy dialogue, with its warnings against sex and the quest for riches, was to inflame, four centuries later, an unexpected young reader, St Augustine.

  In April 45 news of the victory in Spain reached Rome. It promoted a further, crucial flood of honours. Not only was the message timed to arrive just before the city's ancient festival of the Parilia, with its links to Romulus and Rome's foundation which Caesar, therefore, could exploit. The Senate decreed that Caesar should be called 'Liber­ator' and a temple to Liberty should be built.17 It is a cardinal moment in the history of freedom, for no Roman had ever been entitled 'Liber­ator' before. It flatteringly recalled Caesar's claims at the very start of the Civil War and ascribed 'freedom' to a man who had yet again killed honest Roman citizens in battle. His statue was even to stand on the Capitol beside the founders of the Republic. But then the 'liberated' senators went on to call him 'Father of the Fatherland', to vote him crowns, fifty days of supplications and, above all, two extreme divine honours. His ivory statue was to be wheeled in pro­cession with those of the gods, and another statue, set in a temple, was to be inscribed 'To the Invin
cible God'. The inscription had strong overtones of Alexander the Great.18 Even so, in summer 45 one shrewd noble Roman, Cicero's equal in the writing of moral philosophy, did still think that the Republic would be restored. This nobleman, Marcus Brutus, had benefited, so far, from Caesar and he was to be a praetor for the next year. Even in 45 freedom of speech still existed away from Caesar's table: in his work on oratory, Cicero had just hinted that Brutus should live up to his noble ancestors. It was a highly charged remark. Atticus, Cicero's friend, had recently helped Brutus to construct his family tree. Brutus had then had it painted in the main room of his house, the house he called his 'Parthenon', in honour of Athens. On its wall, he could look daily at a genealogy which went back (it was said) to the two great tyrant-slayers in the earliest history of Rome.19 One of them, also called Brutus, had killed proud King Tarquin and had then also killed his own sons for favouring Tarquin. This famous Brutus then became the first consul in the first year of the Republic which replaced kingship; his statue, long before Caesar's, had stood in honour on the Capitol. This herit­age was not lost on his descendant. Brutus had represented it on coins, probably struck in 55/4 bc, with the word 'Liberty' too. Caesar was known to have had a sexual affair with Brutus' mother, but this private matter was not behind Brutus' growing discontent. The roots were political: and, as a young man, whose father was dead (killed by Pompey), Brutus had been brought up as Cato's protege. He had philosophic interests, and in summer 45 he remarried: significantly his new wife was Porcia, the widowed daughter of the arch-republican, Cato.

  While curbing political freedom, Caesar had legislated, inevitably, on that feared phantom, personal luxury. Inspectors were even said to be checking on people's dinner-parties and on food-markets and to have banned pearls and extravagant clothes. The law was not totally ignored, because we find Cicero remarking that cooks were learning to prepare new vegetarian dishes and that the obligatory new diet of roast vegetables was giving him stomach ache.20 In October 45 Caesar did celebrate a triumph, his second, for the victories in Spain. But many resented it, as it was for victories over Romans in Civil War, not legal objects for a triumph. For the most memorable insight into what Caesar now represented, we must look to Cicero. In the festive season of mid-December 45 Caesar came to pay a 'social call' on his old friend. He arrived at Cicero's villa with about 2,000 soldiers and attendants, all of whom had to be dined too. The two of them then talked pleasantly enough over dinner, as if they were 'just human beings'.21 But they talked not a word of politics, the lifeblood of Cicero's previous existence. Instead, they talked only of literature. It was a restriction unimaginable in their previous years together. 'But my guest', Cicero wrote afterwards, 'was not the sort to whom one says, "Do please come again when you are back". Once is enough.'

  At one point on the way back, he noticed, the entire troop of soldiers moved up and rode on either side of Caesar, to guard him.

  At Rome, Caesar was prepared now to accept a continuing stream of honours without precedent, sacrifices on his birthday (a divine honour for kings in the Greek world), annual vows for his welfare and 'sacrosanctity' for his person, like a tribune. He was old now, by ancient standards, and his health was not good, but nonetheless his next plan was widely recognized. It would be more of what he had always done best, military campaigning, three years of it, to win glory in the East against the Parthians, old Crassus' recent undoing. There were even rumours that he would then swing round by the Black Sea and return, a conquering champion, by the river Danube through Dacia. In cities in the Greek East, Caesar had already been given 'honours equal to those of the gods'. Other Romans before him had received these honours in the Greek world, and like Caesar they had met local kings on their travels. But unlike them, Caesar had actually brought a queen with him (Cleopatra was in the city, where she had 'diplomatic business'). Was Caesar planning to be a king (like his ancestors) and to be worshipped outright as a god with formal cult? Honours were still showering on him, perhaps purely so as to see what he would refuse. In early 44 we are told that he was voted a cult in which Antony, his fellow consul, would be his priest. His house was to have an honorary pediment like a temple; the Senate is even said to have called him 'Jupiter Julius'. Proposals for a cult of the living Caesar thus seem to be a certainty, but the ultimate horror, his willingness to take the title of king, remains uncertain. Certainly, elements of 'royalty' were proposed for him: a golden throne (but to be left empty, and in the theatre only), a golden crown (like a triumphing general). In late January crowds called out 'King!' as he returned with a solemn ovation from a festival celebration: he corrected them.22 In mid-February 44 crowds gathered in Rome for the religious festival of the Luperci, when young men ran naked to 'touch' women with rods and assist their future fertility. While running with them, Mark Antony and others did offer Caesar a royal diadem, only to see him throw it ostentatiously away. The 'refusal', perhaps, was planned to allay traditionalists' doubts, much to the plebs' regret. But there was no doubting one thing: by mid-February 44 Caesar had accepted another 'dictatorship', his fourth, but this time it was defined as one for life. So much, then, for the Republic's future. Not unjustly, Caesar was believed to have called the Republic 'a mere name without body or form', and to have criticized Sulla for not knowing his political ABC, because Sulla had resigned the dictatorship which he had achieved.23 There was no question, now, of Caesar restoring the sena­tors' liberty. Here was a clear turning point.

  With hindsight, various omens and warnings were remembered, but there had never been any shortage of them. Up by the Rubicon, however, the horses whom Caesar had left free were said to be refusing to eat.24 How right the horses were: Caesar had even dismissed his bodyguards in Rome. It was not that he was courting death, surely: it was a confident sign that he was supreme. When the senators had come to honour him extravagantly, he failed (as a dictator could) to rise to greet them: deep down, he felt they were common little men, many of whom were his own creations. However, he promptly regret­ted his rudeness and alleged, wrongly, that he had been struck by stomach problems at the time.

  The lifelong dictatorship, the imminent cult: these signs were intol­erable to those senators who minded deeply about liberty. One was the impetuous Cassius, praetor for the year (with Brutus) but a proven soldier as well as a man with Epicurean philosophic interests: his ancestors, like those of Brutus, had once issued coins with the caption 'Liberty'. He was also Brutus' brother-in-law, married to his half-sister. Other men, inevitably, felt personal slights or disappointments, sustained in a system of honour which increasingly depended on Caesar's 'grace and favour'. There was also the unresolved question of kingship. It was said to be about to come up again, on the strength of a Sibylline oracle which apparently stated that Parthia could only be conquered by a 'king'.21 On the Ides of March 44, amid routine warnings, Caesar went nonetheless to a meeting of the Senate, only to confront an insistent group of senators, among whom was Marcus Brutus. Sixty senators or so were in the plot, but no more than five or six of them could have rushed at Caesar and stabbed him, while his fellow consul Mark Antony was detained outside. Caesar's body fell, streaming blood. Twenty-three wounds were later noted on it, and the conspirators left him to lie till nightfall. It is probably only a legend that Caesar's last words were 'You too, Brutus?', but it is probably true that Brutus called out the name of the one senator whom the conspirators had excluded from the plot for fear that he was too indiscreet: Cicero! By hints, however, and in private letters, Cicero had contrived, most admirably, to protest throughout at Caesar's despotism. Now Caesar was dead, and he lay in the temple adjoining Pompey's Theatre, where the Senate had been about to meet, within yards of a statue of Pompey himself.

  38

  Liberation Betrayed

  As for the boy Caesar (Octavian), his natural worth and manli­ness are extraordinary. I only pray that I may be able to govern and hold him when he is in the full flush of honours and favour as 1 have done so far. That is more difficult,
it is true, but still I do not despair. The young man is persuaded (most of all, through me) that our survival is his business . ..

  Cicero to Marcus Brutus, c. 21 April 43 bc

  The events after Caesar's murder are the supreme chapter in the story of freedom in ancient Rome. The days and months are wonderfully evoked for us by partisan survivors, Cicero's contemporary letters and speeches. Cicero's aims failed, but he was not always deceived. Despite moments of fear and retreat, he seldom fell below the level of events, although he was sixty-two years old. His faults were the same as always, and venially fatal: his wit and polemic against other big men's failings and his habit of seeing events as he himself wished them to be.

  In Cicero's view, the golden chance was lost: as soon as Caesar lay dead, the Senate should have been called to the scene and the people summoned at once to liberty. In fact, like many tyrant-slayers in Greek history, the conspirators did nothing more: one of them hoisted a 'cap of freedom' on a spear and the corpse was left lying, 'lawfully slain' and fit only for throwing into the Tiber.1 Instead, three slaves took it home. The surviving consul, Mark Antony, had fled, but that very evening, it seems, Antony's plans were already being feared as the 'very worst, the most treacherous'.2 Above the Forum, noble Brutus had addressed an audience on the Capitol hill, but his speech, in Cicero's view, was too elegant and too short of fire.

  When Alexander the Great died his officers faked his 'last plans' to ensure that they were publicly rejected. When Caesar died Mark Antony took what he claimed were Caesar's plans and two days later, on the 17th, artfully urged reconciliation at a meeting of the Senate. Caesar's murderers, he proposed, were not to be avenged: that, at least, was a relief. Caesar's plans, however, and his actions, past, present and future, were all to be ratified. It was a crucial moment. So many of the senators owed their rank and prospects to Caesar's recent decisions that the measure was sure to be passed. In case they hesitated, armed soldiers, Caesar's veterans, were already present to clarify their minds. So the senators agreed. They also agreed that Caesar's body should have a funeral, a public funeral indeed, on the urging of his father-in-law.