Roma.The novel of ancient Rome r-1

by Steven Saylor

  Lucius paused for a moment to get his bearings, then sprinted to the end of the street and rounded a corner. There was Casca’s house-and Casca himself standing in the open doorway, evidently on his way out but pausing to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He was reaching into the folds of his voluminous toga, searching for something and looking befuddled.

  Exhilarated by the run and by his narrow escape, Lucius drew a deep lungful of air. Casca, startled by his sudden approach, gave a jerk and stumbled against the doorjamb.

  “Casca! What are you looking for?” said Lucius, gasping. “If you can hide me half as well-”

  Even as Lucius spoke, Casca produced the thing he had been searching for. In his fist he held a short but very sharp dagger. The look in his eyes raised the hackles on Lucius’s neck.

  Lucius heard shouts behind him. He had not escaped his pursuers after all. He bolted, but Casca grabbed his arm. The man was stronger than he looked. He called for slaves to come and help him. Lucius struggled. As he sprang free, he felt a searing pain across one forearm. Casca’s blade had scraped him, just deeply enough to drawn a line of blood. Lucius felt sick, but he did not dare to stop running.

  The flight continued across the valley of the Circus Maximus and up the winding streets of the Aventine. Near the Temple of Juno, Lucius was sure he had lost them. He hid in a doorway, his heart pounding and his lungs on fire. The trail of blood had thickened on his forearm. The shallow wound burned as if he had been seared by a brand.

  Where was Caesar? He must be on his way to the meeting of the Senate by now. Antonius would be with him, surely, along with others who would defend him. But could even Antonius be trusted? And what if Caesar insisted on leaving his bodyguards behind? Lucius thought of the risk the two of them had taken the previous night, walking alone across the Palatine, and trembled.

  He must reach Caesar and warn him, but how? Lucius was a fast runner, but even if he sprouted wings and flew, Caesar would almost certainly arrive at the Theater of Pompeius ahead of him, and if Brutus and the rest were already waiting for him…

  Lucius had to try. He took a deep breath and began to run again.

  Down the Aventine he ran, around the fountain of the Appian Aqueduct and past the Ara Maxima. He was suddenly very weary. His legs turned to lead and his chest seemed to have a tight band of iron across it. There were blisters on his feet. The shoes he had put on that morning were not good for running.

  Still he ran, faster than he had thought possible.

  At last, the massive facade of the theater loomed before him. To avoid accusations of decadence, Pompeius had dedicated the complex not as a theater but as a temple. By a clever architectural trick, the rows of theater seats also served as steps leading up to a sanctuary of Venus at the summit. Branching off from the theater itself were several porticos decorated with hundreds of statues. These arcades housed shrines, gardens, shops, and public chambers, including the large assembly room where the Senate was to meet.

  The public square and the broad steps leading up to the main portico were empty. Lucius had hoped to see the area awash with red and white; here the senators in their crimson-bordered togas were accustomed to mill about before going inside. They had gone inside already.

  But no-not quite all of them were inside yet. Lucius spied two figures on the steps, near the top. They stood close together, apparently engaged in a serious conversation. Lucius hurried across the square and reached the bottom of the steps. Looking up, he could see that one of the men was Antonius. The other was a senator he vaguely recognized, a man named Trebonius.

  Lucius bounded up the steps. The men saw him approaching and broke off their conversation. Lucius drew near, dizzy and gasping for breath. He staggered. Antonius seized his arm to steady him.

  “By Hercules, you look a fright!” Antonius smiled. He seemed more amused than alarmed by Lucius’s appearance. “What’s the matter, young man?”

  Lucius was so out of breath it was difficult to speak. “Caesar…” he managed to say.

  “Inside, along with everyone else,” said Antonius.

  “But why-why are you not with him?”

  Antonius raised an eyebrow. “Trebonius here drew me aside-”

  “To discuss an important matter-privately.” Trebonius gave Lucius a stern, threatening look.

  “But we’re done with that, aren’t we, Trebonius? We really should go in. They haven’t shut the doors yet, have they?” Antonius looked over his shoulder, toward the entrance to the assembly hall. In front of the massive bronze doors, which stood open, priests were clearing blood and organs from the stone altar where auspices were taken before the start of each day’s business. Antonius, whose buoyant mood seemed unshakable, smiled and laughed.

  “You wouldn’t believe the slaughter that just went on over there,” he said to Lucius. “One poor creature after another sacrificed and cut open, to take the omens. The first chicken had no heart, which rather alarmed the priests. Caesar ordered another sacrifice, and another, but the priests kept telling him that the entrails were twisted and all the omens were contrary. He finally told them, ‘To Hades with this nonsense, the omens before the battle of Pharsalus were just as bad. Let the Senate get on with its business!’”

  Antonius grinned. Why was he in such a jovial mood? Lucius stepped back from the two men. Could even Antonius be trusted?

  Lucius felt faint. Spots swam before his eyes. The moment seemed unreal and dreamlike. He stared at the nearby altar, where a priest was mopping up remains. The sight of the rag, saturated with blood and dripping gore, sent a thrill of panic through him. He pushed past the two men and raced toward the entrance.

  The hall was an oval-shaped well, with seats on either side descending in tiers to the main floor. The session had not yet commenced. There was a low hubbub of conversation. Most of the senators had taken their seats, but others were milling about on the main floor in front of the chair of state-no one yet dared to call it a throne-on which Caesar was seated. How serene Caesar looked, how confident! In one hand he held a stylus, for marking documents. He turned the stylus this way and that with nimble fingers, the only sign of the nervous excitement he must be feeling on such a momentous day.

  One of the senators, Tillius Cimber, stepped toward him, bowing slightly as if importuning Caesar for a favor. Caesar apparently found the request inappropriate. He shook his head and waved his stylus dismissively. Instead of withdrawing, Cimber stepped closer and clutched Caesar’s toga near his shoulder.

  “No!” Lucius shouted. His voice rang out high and shrill, like a boy’s. Heads turned toward him. Caesar looked up, saw him and frowned, then immediately returned his attention to Cimber.

  Caesar spoke through clenched teeth. “Take your hand off me, Cimber!”

  Instead, Cimber yanked at the toga, so forcefully that Caesar was almost pulled from his chair. His toga was askew. The naked flesh of his shoulder was bared.

  Holding fast to Caesar’s toga, Cimber looked at the others nearby. As Caesar tried to pull free, Cimber’s expression became frantic.

  “What are you all waiting for?” cried Cimber. “Do it! Do it now!”

  The portly Casca stepped forward. His forehead was beaded with sweat. A grimace bared his gums. He raised his dagger high in the air.

  The sight elicited gasps and exclamations from all over the hall. Only Caesar appeared not to realize what was about to happen; he was still staring at Cimber, looking angry and confused. He turned his head just as Casca plunged the dagger downward. His face registered shock as the blade struck the exposed skin below his neck. There was a sickening sound of metal cutting into flesh.

  Caesar let out a roar. He seized Casca’s wrist with one hand. With the other he stabbed his stylus deep into Casca’s forearm. Casca bleated in pain, withdrew his bloody dagger and scurried back.

  Others stepped forward, baring their daggers.

  Caesar jerked free from Cimber’s grip. His toga was in such disarray that he tripped
on it. He was bleeding profusely from the wound at his neck. The look on his face was of outrage and disbelief.

  Even then, Lucius thought that disaster might be averted. Caesar was wounded, but on his feet. He had a weapon of sorts-his stylus. If he could hold the would-be assassins at bay long enough for the other senators to rush to his assistance, all might be well. If only Lucius had a weapon!

  And where was Antonius?

  Lucius looked back toward the entrance. Antonius had just appeared. He stood in the doorway with a puzzled look on his face, realizing from the sudden uproar that something was terribly wrong.

  Lucius called to him. “Antonius! Hurry! Come quickly!”

  But when Lucius looked back toward Caesar, he lost all hope. The assassins had converged on their victim. Caesar had dropped his stylus. He held up both arms, desperately trying to fend off his attackers. They stabbed him again and again. In all the confusion, a few of them appeared to have stabbed one another by accident.

  Blood was everywhere. Caesar’s toga was drenched with it, and the togas of the assassins were spotted with red. There was so much blood on the floor that Casca slipped and fell.

  Amid the flashing daggers, Lucius caught a glimpse of Caesar. His face was barely recognizable, contorted with agony. He let out a scream that seemed to come from an animal, not a man. The sound chilled Lucius to the marrow.

  Caesar broke free from the men surrounding him. He reeled backward, tripping on his toga and stamping his feet as he staggered past the chair of state, toward the wall, where a statue of the hall’s founder stood in a place of honor. Caesar fell against the pedestal of Pompeius’s statue. He slid downward, smearing the inscription with blood. He ended up slumped on the floor, his back against the pedestal, his legs outstretched.

  His disarray was indecent; his undertunic was twisted and pulled aside so as to bare a patch of flesh where his thigh met his groin. Jerking like a spastic, flailing grotesquely, he seemed to be trying with one hand to cover his face with a fold of his toga, and with the other to cover his nakedness. Caesar was dying, yet he still sought to preserve his dignity.

  Some of the assassins looked horrified at what they had done. Others looked exhilarated, even jubilant. Among the latter was Cassius, who was covered with blood. He strode toward Brutus, who stood at the edge of the group and had not a drop of blood on him. Nor was there any blood on the dagger in his hand.

  “You, too, Brutus!” said Cassius.

  Brutus looked numb. He seemed unable to move.

  “You have to do it,” insisted Cassius. “Each of us must strike a blow. Twenty-three brave men; twenty-three blows for freedom. Do it!”

  Brutus stepped slowly toward the twitching, bloody figure at the base of Pompeius’s statue. He seemed horrified by Caesar’s appearance. He swallowed hard, clutched his dagger, and knelt beside him.

  With blood spilling from his mouth and running over his chin, Caesar managed one last utterance. “You, too…my child?”

  Brutus appeared emboldened by the words. He gritted his teeth, pulled back his dagger, and plunged it into the exposed place where Caesar’s thigh met his groin. Caesar thrashed and convulsed. Blood bubbled from his lips. He stiffened, uttered a final grunt, and did not move again.

  Lucius, watching from a distance, saw everything. He was transfixed with horror, oblivious to the stampede of senators rushing to the exit. He felt a hand on his shoulder and gave a start. It was Antonius. The man’s face was ashen. His voice trembled.

  “Come with me, Lucius. You’re not safe here.”

  Lucius shook his head. He was rooted to the spot, unable to move. He had come to warn Caesar. He had failed.

  Brutus walked slowly and calmly toward them. The feverish glimmer had left his eyes. His held his shoulders back, his chin up. He had the look of a man who had done a difficult thing and done it well.

  “No one will harm you, Lucius Pinarius. You have nothing to fear. Neither do you, Antonius, as long as you don’t raise your sword against us.”

  The chamber was almost empty. The only senators who remained were those too old to run.

  Brutus shook his head in disgust. “This wasn’t the reaction we anticipated. I meant to give a speech after it was done, to explain ourselves to the others. But they’ve all run off, like frightened geese.”

  “A speech?” said Antonius, incredulous.

  Brutus reached into his toga and produced a scrap of parchment. His fingers smudged the document with blood. He frowned, displeased that he had marred it. “I was up all night working on it. Well, if not today, then I’ll deliver it tomorrow, when the Senate resumes normal business.”

  “Normal business?” Antonius shook his head in disbelief.

  “Yes. The normal business of the Senate of Roma, freed from the rule of a tyrant. The Republic has been restored. The people will rejoice. Five hundred years ago, my ancestor Brutus freed Roma from a wicked king. Today we followed his example-”

  “Give your speech to somebody else!” shouted Lucius. He shoved Brutus aside and ran toward the exit, weeping.

  Antonius caught up with him. “Come with me, Lucius. No matter what Brutus says, we’re not safe. My house has strong doors, high walls…”

  They were on the steps, descending to the public square. There was not a person in sight.

  “But…his body,” said Lucius. “What if they throw him in the Tiber, as they did the Gracchi?”

  “That will not happen,” said Antonius grimly. “I won’t let such a thing happen. Caesar will have a proper funeral. On my honor as a Roman, I promise you that!”

  When he was annoyed, Gaius Octavius’s voice could become quite shrill. He needed oratorical training to overcome the defect, thought Lucius. In the days since Caesar’s assassination and Gaius Octavius’s return to Roma, Lucius had grown very tired of hearing that shrill note in his cousin’s voice.

  “From this day forward, Antonius, you will address me as Caesar,” said Octavius, sounding even more shrill and annoyed than usual. “I don’t ask it of you. I demand it!”

  “Demand it? You make a demand of me?” Antonius leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He wrinkled his nose. “In the first place, young man, this is my house; here, I give the orders. I used to take orders from Caesar, because he was my commander, but Caesar is dead. He was the last man I’ll ever take orders from. I certainly won’t take orders from his niece’s brat-and I won’t call you by his name! As long as we’re discussing titles, perhaps you should address me as Consul, as I’m the only one of the three of us here in this room who actually holds a magistracy.”

  “Only because Caesar saw fit to appoint you-as he saw fit to name me his son and heir!” snapped Octavius.

  Antonius bristled. “This is my house, Octavius. You are my guest-”

  Lucius rose to his feet. “Marcus! Cousin Gaius! Does this meeting have to be so contentious? The whole city is a viper’s nest. If I want to be subjected to vicious arguments and hateful words, I have only to step outside the door. Can the three of us not speak to one another with some degree of decorum?”

  “A good idea, cousin,” said Octavius. “Decorum begins with addressing a man by his rightful name. Caesar’s will made me his son by adoption, and I have taken his name. I am now Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus.”

  “I understand,” said Lucius. “But if Antonius happens to address you by your old name, why not allow it? Octavius an honorable name, a patrician name, and he honors you and your ancestors when he speaks it. Antonius is our friend, cousin. We need him. He is the shield between us and the men who murdered our uncle. Are we not allies? Do we not share a common purpose? Are the three of us not close enough to call each other by first name, or family name, or whatever name we wish? Can you not simply drop the point for now, cousin Gaius? The question at hand isn’t what we call each other, or yet another discussion of Caesar’s will, but how to keep our heads!”

  For the moment, Octavius was silenced, and so was Antonius. It still
surprised Lucius that he could command their attention and argue with such self-confidence. Almost overnight, after the initial shock of Caesar’s assassination had passed, Lucius had felt himself transformed. He was no longer a callow youth who hesitated to assert himself in conversation with his elders. He was one of Caesar’s heirs, engaged in a desperate struggle for the future.

  When it came down to it, Octavius was only a couple of years older and only slightly more experienced than himself. True, Octavius had seen a bit of battle, but not enough to prove himself a gifted strategist, much less a hero. His overbearing pride sprang from vanity, not accomplishments. In some ways, at least in Lucius’s opinion, his cousin was quite deficient. To begin with, Octavius’s oratorical skills were not at all impressive, no matter what Caesar had thought.

  Antonius was a far more polished and persuasive speaker, as he had shown when he delivered Caesar’s funeral oration before a huge crowd. The speech had been intensely dramatic yet remarkably subtle. Antonius never said a word against the killers, but by praising Caesar he moved his listeners to tears of grief and cries of outrage. Without directly saying so, he made the case that Roma had been defiled by the murder of a great leader, not liberated by the assassination of a tyrant. Antonius had also revealed one of the terms of Caesar’s will: From his vast personal fortune, Caesar had decreed a generous disbursement of seventy-five Attic drachmas to every citizen living in Roma. This had done much to sway the crowd against Caesar’s assassins.

  But Antonius, too, had his faults, as Lucius had become all too aware in recent days. For one thing, he drank too much. In happier times, the man’s appetite for debauchery had impressed and even awed Lucius. Now it struck him as foolhardy; the jeopardy in which they found themselves demanded clear thinking. Antonius also had a streak of pettiness. His refusal to address Octavius as Caesar was perhaps understandable, because it raised a sore point: Octavius was the chief benefactor of Caesar’s will, while Antonius, to everyone’s surprise, had been left out of the will entirely. Nonetheless, Antonius’s repeated and deliberate baiting of Octavius served no one’s purpose.