The Emperor Series: Books 1-5

by Conn Iggulden

  Pompey’s failure may have been in part due to an illness, for which there is some evidence, or simply the fact that he was facing a Roman enemy with the most astonishing record of any general alive. It may have been that having the Senate with him was a greater handicap than we can know. Either way, Pompey had twice as many men and at least four times the cavalry. He should not have needed to build fortifications and fight a defensive war.

  At one point, Pompey had victory for the taking. The disastrous pincer attack on Pompey’s forces is a real event. One of the sides was held up and Caesar’s cohorts were routed. Caesar grabbed the standard and tried to rally the fleeing men, but they went around him, leaving him alone. Pompey was convinced it was an ambush and did not pursue the fleeing forces, leading Julius to comment, ‘Today, victory would have gone to our opponents if they had someone who knew how to win.’ He lost nine hundred and sixty soldiers in the rout. Those who were captured were executed by Labienus. Pompey had lost the best chance he would ever have. The senators with Pompey were contemptuous of his unwillingness to close with the enemy. They demanded that he wage a more aggressive war and eventually he agreed.

  At Pharsalus, Pompey commanded troops from Spain and Syria, Gaul, Germany and Macedonia as well as Roman legionaries. Caesar gives the numbers of Pompeian cavalry as 7,000, though it seems likely to have been an exaggeration.

  The interesting incident of Pompey holding back his front line is well attested, though different reasons are suggested in various sources. My own feeling, based on Pompey’s ten deep lines, is that morale was appalling amongst his men and he saw nervousness in the ranks as Caesar’s army approached. Needless to say, it is a uniquely poor decision from the general who destroyed Spartacus and cleared the Mediterranean of pirates. The true state of Pompey’s mind can never now be known. His private papers were left behind after Pharsalus and Julius had them burnt without looking at them.

  I have followed the main events of Pharsalus as far as they are known. Pompey used his cavalry to rout Caesar’s on the right wing. It took time for Pompey’s riders to re-form and turn and in that period Caesar’s smaller force came back and attacked them from behind, driving their own men into their lines. Caesar’s extraordinarii pushed on to destroy the archers and broke through to hit the flank and rear of Pompey’s lines. A full rout followed quickly after that.

  The inescapable conclusion regarding Pharsalus is that Caesar should not have been able to win. Pompey had every advantage, but still his men folded before the veterans. Julius, it should be remembered, was a lawfully elected consul with a record of extraordinary, unprecedented shows of mercy. Corfinium is only one example in the civil war where he pardoned men who fought against him. His policy was intended to undermine Pompey in the field and it seems to have worked. I believe Pharsalus is as much a triumph of propaganda and perception as it is a military victory.

  Caesar was indeed given a jar containing Pompey’s head on the docks of Alexandria. The Egyptians did not want a Roman war in their lands, though this attempt to avert one was to prove futile. Julius is recorded as having wept at the death of Pompey, though we can only guess at his reasons.

  The Alexandria that Caesar would have seen is lost to the modern world. As well as the Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven ancient wonders that no longer exists, most of the streets and buildings in this book are now underwater. Modern excavations are still finding statues of Cleopatra and the son she had with Caesar, Ptolemy Caesarion.

  Perhaps it is not surprising that a Roman consul who had been at war for most of his adult life should suddenly give it all up on meeting the twenty-one-year-old Cleopatra. The story of her being delivered to Caesar by her Greek attendant is well attested, though some sources say it was a long bag rather than a rolled carpet.

  Cleopatra was indeed a descendant of Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals. She spoke five languages and was the first of her line to speak Egyptian. In her time, Alexandria was a real blend of cultures, with Greek colonnaded buildings and Egyptian statues in streets such as the Canopic Way.

  The eunuch who played such a part in controlling the young Ptolemy was in fact named Pothinus, though I changed it so as not to have too similar a name to Porphiris, which I liked. Panek, in fact, means ‘snake’, which seemed appropriate. Caesar did give Cyprus back to the Egyptians as part of the negotiations after capturing the boy king. The scene where the young Ptolemy cried and refused to leave the barricaded palace is true. It is also true that on reaching his army and being dressed once again as the king, the thirteen-year-old ordered an immediate attack. He did not survive the struggle for power in Alexandria.

  The body of Alexander the Great is also lost, though it rested in Alexandria in Caesar’s time, in a coffin of glass, as I have described. The body was covered in gold leaf and, given his status as a pharaoh and god, had presumably been embalmed.

  I have only skated over Caesar’s marriage to Calpurnia, in 59 BC. Cleopatra too was married to another younger brother by the time she came to Rome. There was clearly a vast difference between formal alliances and real feeling.

  Julius Caesar did indeed meet the son of the king of Syria on his grand tour before returning to Rome. Herod would grow to be the man who ordered the death of every first-born son in an attempt to break a prophecy predicting the birth of Christ.

  The famous line ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’, ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’, comes from the four-hour battle against the son of Mithridates in Greece. If not for that line, it would be one of the forgotten moments of history.

  Mark Antony tried three times to crown Julius on the feast of Lupercalia in February rather than the Egyptian Triumph. Julius is recorded as having lost his temper on the third try, perhaps because the crowd did not applaud the sight of a crown on his head.

  Despite the lack of a crown, the Senate showered Caesar with unprecedented honours. As well as ‘Dictator Perpetuus’, ‘Imperator’ and ‘Father of His Country’, Julius was accorded the right to divine worship. A statue was raised to him with the words ‘To the Unconquerable God’. He was given the right to wear the regalia of the old kings.

  We cannot know the full reasons for these honours now. Perhaps it was an attempt by men like Cicero to have Julius reach too far and alienate the citizens that loved him. Alternatively, such accolades could have been the only way the Senate were able to remain valuable to Caesar. Cassius is said to have brought Brutus into the conspiracy with the warning that the Senate would make Julius a king. It may even have been true.

  The death of Caesar happened on the Ides (the 15th day) of March in 44 BC. The Senate were indeed meeting in Pompey’s theatre, though how many witnessed the murder is unknown. After a lot of thought, I did not include the fact that Caesar was handed a scroll warning him of the conspiracy. The man who passed it into his hands had once been employed by Brutus and the suspicion will always be there that Brutus himself was behind the warning, as complex a man as Caesar himself. It was never read and I felt this was an unnecessary complication.

  Tillius Cimber held Caesar for the first blow by Casca – the first of twenty-three wounds. Only one was directly fatal, which shows the chaos of the murder. Caesar struggled until he saw Brutus was part of it, then pulled his toga over his head and sat like stone until they had completed their task. The courage of such an act defies description.

  The night before, Caesar is said to have expressed a preference for a quick end rather than the agony of disease or weakness. His epilepsy may have troubled him, but a man does not welcome death and plan a campaign in Parthia at the same time. Nor does he give up the struggle for life when he has, at last, a son to follow his line. Suetonius said he was fifty-five years old, though the figure cannot be certain, as his birth date is unknown.

  Julius Caesar named Octavian his heir in his will and it is one of the great tragedies that Octavian did not allow Ptolemy Caesarion to reach manhood. Though Cleopatra fled back to Egypt after the murder, it did not save her, or her young so
n. Perhaps it is true that those who have power do not allow future enemies to grow, but it does seem a particularly pitiless act.

  History is littered with the stories of men who rose through fire and battle to positions of power – only to have their empires shattered on their deaths. Caesar achieved a position in Rome that no one else had ever managed on such a scale. He used the power to introduce a new calendar, give citizenship to all doctors and teachers, and move 80,000 of the poorest to new starts in colonies. He gave every Roman 300 sesterces, grain and oil. His legions were made rich to a man, with the centurions alone receiving 10,000 silver coins each. His Triumphs were unparalleled, including using the Tiber to flood a great basin on the Campus Martius for a violent ‘sea battle’. Tens of thousands attended his banquets. Yet perhaps his greatest good fortune was to be followed by Octavian, who took the name Gaius Julius Caesar to honour him and was only later known as Augustus. It was his steady hand that birthed the longest empire the world has ever known. Augustus was the first emperor, but Julius Caesar prepared his seat.

  I have never been able to believe that Brutus took part in the murder of Julius Caesar out of a desire to restore the Republic. That was certainly the reason he gave and he had coins made that actually celebrate the events of the Ides of March. I think the complex relationship with Servilia played a part, brought to a head by the fact that Julius had at last fathered an heir. As Servilia survived Julius, she also survived her son and was brought his ashes after the battle of Philippi.

  One change that I have made in these pages also has a bearing on Brutus’ motives. Caesar’s daughter Julia was originally promised to Brutus, a union that would have helped his rise through the echelons of Roman society. Always the pragmatist, Julius broke off the engagement to give her to Pompey instead. These are more human reasons for hatred, but the strongest may be the subtleties of envy and frustration in their own relationship. The final damage may simply have been that Julius publicly forgave the betrayal at Pharsalus. For Brutus, I suspect that would have been unbearable.

  On a final note, I called this series ‘Emperor’ as I intended to show how the era of men such as Marius, Cato, Sulla and Julius created the empire that followed. The title ‘Imperator’ was given to any successful general. Julius may not have been crowned, but in everything but name, he was the one who brought the empire into the world.

  In years to come, I may have to write the story of the aftermath of the assassination. Not a single man who stood with bloody hands in Pompey’s theatre died a natural death. In its way, it is a tale as great as any other, but it will have to wait for another day.

  Conn Iggulden

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A number of people have devoted their time and energy to these books. I cannot name them all, but I must thank Fiona and Ingrid in particular for their extraordinary hard work. Thank you as well, to all those who have written to me. I have been touched by the responses to these books. Finally, I must mention the Inner Circle and Janis in Glasgow, who kept me smiling through a long afternoon.

  Copyright

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006

  Copyright © Conn Iggulden 2006

  Conn Iggulden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007437153

  Ebook Edition © December 2013 ISBN: 9780007321780

  Version: 2013-12-05

  EMPEROR

  THE BLOOD OF GODS

  CONN IGGULDEN

  To George Romanis

  ‘I am the most peaceable of men. All I ask is a humble cottage with a thatched roof, a good bed, good food, fresh milk and butter, flowers before my window and a few fine trees at my door; and if the dear Lord wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before their death I shall forgive them all the wrongs they did me in their lifetime. One must forgive one’s enemies – but not before they have been hanged.’

  Heinrich Heine

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Three

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Not all of them were marked with blood. His body lay on cold marble, the stone proof against red lines dripping down the benches. Those who walked away looked back at least once, hardly able to believe that the tyrant would not rise. Caesar had fought, but they had been too many, too determined.

  They could not see his face. In his last moments, the leader of Rome had yanked at the loose folds of his toga, pulling the cloth over his head as they gripped and stabbed at him. Its whiteness was marked with mouths. His bowels had opened as he slumped and fell to one side. The smell of it rose into the air in the theatre. There was no dignity for the broken thing they had made.

  More than twenty men were spattered with the violence, some of them still panting in great heaving breaths. Around them were twice as many again, those who had not wielded blades but had stood and watched and not moved to save Caesar. Those who had taken part were still stunned at the violence and the feel of warm blood on their skins. Many had served terms with the army. They had seen death before, but in foreign lands and exotic cities. Not in Rome, not here.

  Marcus Brutus touched his blade to both palms, leaving a red smear. Decimus Junius saw him do it and, after a moment of awe, he marked his own hands with fresh blood. Almost with reverence, the rest copied the action. Brutus had told them they would not walk with guilt. He had told them they had saved a nation from a tyrant. Behind him, they took the first steps towards a thick bar of light leading to the outside.

  Brutus breathed deeply as he reached the sun, pausing on the threshold and letting the warmth seep into him. H
e was dressed as a soldier, the only man there in armour and with a gladius on his hip. In his late fifties, his bare brown legs were still strong, still rooted in the earth. There were tears in his eyes and he felt as if shadows of age and betrayal had been lifted, scars scrubbed away from his skin, so that he was made new.

  He heard the men in robes gather at his back. Cassius stepped to his side, touching him lightly on the shoulder in comfort or support. Brutus did not look at him. His eyes were raised to the sun.

  ‘We can honour him now,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘We can heap glory on his memory until he is crushed beneath it all.’

  Cassius heard and sighed, the sound like a burr to Brutus’ mood.

  ‘The Senate will be waiting for the news, my friend,’ Cassius murmured. ‘Let us leave the old world behind in this place.’

  Brutus looked at him and the wiry senator almost recoiled from what he saw in those eyes. The moment held and none of those behind made a sound. Though they had killed, it was only then that they began to fear the city all around them. They had been swept up like leaves in a gale, casting aside reason to follow stronger men. The reality was drifting through the air, Rome remade in motes of golden dust. Without another word, Brutus walked out into the sun and they followed him.

  The roads were busy at first, the trades and wares of thousands on display on every spare ledge or half blocking the stone road. A wave of silence came out of Pompey’s theatre, vanishing behind the senators, but staying with them as they turned towards the forum. The hawkers and servants and citizens of Rome froze at the sight of almost sixty men in white togas, led by one in armour whose right hand drifted to his sword hilt as he strode out.

  Rome had seen processions before, by the thousand, but there was no joy in those who walked up the Capitoline hill. Whispers and nudges pointed out the red smears on their hands, the splashes of still-bright blood on their robes. Strangers shook their heads in fear and stayed well back, as if the group carried danger or disease.