Death of Caesar : The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination (9781451668827)

by Strauss, Barry

  No politician could stop Caesar, nor could any army defeat him. For nearly a decade the people of Gaul treated him like a king. Take one small example, the surrender of Vercingetorix at Alesia, where the Gallic leader threw himself and his best armor at Caesar’s feet after Caesar circled him on his horse. Having tasted such hard-won dominion, Caesar had no interest in turning it over to the petty, bitter politicians in Rome who, as he saw it, forced him into civil war in spite of all his services to his country.

  But anyone with the least taste for romance can’t help but think that the biggest influence moving Caesar to take even more power was his mistress, the queen of Egypt.

  CLEOPATRA

  Caesar met Cleopatra in 48 B.C. when he went to Egypt in pursuit of Pompey. Pompey had been assassinated when he stepped ashore, betrayed by his supposed friend Egypt’s King Ptolemy XIII. Caesar had no use for Ptolemy. He had robbed Caesar of Pompey’s surrender and besides, the king refused to fund Caesar’s troops. But Caesar found a willing ally in Ptolemy’s sister, Cleopatra. She gladly offered to pay in exchange for support for her claim to the throne.

  She was smuggled into the palace in Alexandria, covered, as one story has it, in bed linens, then unrolled in front of Caesar. Cleopatra had great physical presence. She was short and vigorous—she could ride a horse and hunt. If we can judge by her coins, she was not conventionally pretty—she had a prominent chin, a large mouth, and a rugged nose, but the coins might give her exaggerated masculine features to make her look kingly. Certainly, Cleopatra was clever, cunning, and seductive. She represented glamour—she was Egypt, a land of antiquity and elegance. She was glory because she was descended from Alexander the Great’s marshal, Ptolemy I. She was youth; Cleopatra was twenty-one, Caesar was fifty-two. Within a month of their meeting, she was pregnant.

  When Caesar and Cleopatra were together, the parties often went on until first light. They cruised together on the Nile on her state barge. Accompanied by more than four hundred ships, they pushed south nearly all the way to Ethiopia, past majestic temples and exotic flora and fauna. It was a journey of exploration and adventure as well as romance.

  By spring 47 B.C., after hard fighting in Alexandria and the Nile Delta, Caesar was master of Egypt. And Cleopatra was mistress of Caesar, or so the legend has it. They were two power politicians, not fools for love. Sound political reasoning urged Caesar to prefer Cleopatra to Ptolemy—she was weaker. Ptolemy had strong popular support in Alexandria; Cleopatra needed Rome. She would make a loyal client as ruler of Egypt.

  Yet the bright young queen might have had an impact on Caesar even so. What did he think, for example, if she asked him why he wasn’t a god? After all, she was a goddess and every king or queen of Egypt was divine. Alexander the Great was a god, and so, for that matter, were other rulers of the Greek East. Why not Caesar? Why, for that matter, wasn’t he a king? By praising his forceful behavior in Alexandria, Cleopatra might have reinforced Caesar’s desire to be done with the tiresome grandees of the Senate and the constitutional trivialities that they hid behind to protect their privileges. And her connection to Alexander could remind Caesar that there were new worlds to conquer in the East.

  In summer 47 B.C., after Caesar’s departure from Egypt, Cleopatra had a son. She named him Ptolemy XV Caesar, but he was known as “Caesarion” or Little Caesar. She claimed that Caesar was the father. It’s hard to know how Caesar responded, if at all, because the subject is encrusted with later propaganda battles. A Roman source says that “certain Greek writers” claimed that Caesarion looked and walked like Caesar.

  Caesar was probably not a doting father, but it’s easy to imagine the boy stirring his soul. Twenty years earlier, when he was thirty-three, Caesar had lamented the fact that Alexander the Great was already dead at his age while Caesar had not yet achieved anything of note. Now, he was a great conqueror, and Caesarion linked him genetically with one of Alexander’s generals. Still, even if Caesar did accept the boy as his own, he certainly never thought of making a half Egyptian, born out of wedlock, his heir in Rome.

  We are on firmer grounds imagining that Alexandria impressed Caesar. The great city would have impressed anyone. It was about as populous as Rome and immensely grander. Founded by Alexander the Great, it was the showplace of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Beginning with its famous lighthouse, which rose to a height of about 350 feet on an island north of town, Alexandria’s architecture bedazzled. The Palace District, the ports, the colonnades, the Museum, the great Library, the tombs of the Ptolemies and of Alexander the Great, the wide boulevards on a grid plan, the play of marble and granite—it all captivated a visitor. Alexandria outshone Rome. No wonder Caesar put so much emphasis afterward on building a bigger and better Rome.

  Caesar did not forget Cleopatra when he left Alexandria in 47 B.C. The next year, back in Rome, he included a gilded statue of the queen as part of his new forum. The statue was a slap in the face to Roman traditionalists.

  But Caesar wasn’t thinking of them. He knew that most of the Senate and nearly all the ex-consuls (consulars, as they were called) had opposed him in the Civil War. What mattered to Caesar were a few trusted loyalists as well as his allies in the new elites of Italy and the provinces, the urban plebs, and, above all, the army. Let the Best Men grumble in spite of all he did to conciliate them. Caesar’s men would treat him as he deserved, he who was his country’s best hope.

  CAESAR’S MEN

  Not only did the war in Gaul make Caesar one of history’s greatest conquerors; it also let him build a state within a state. There was, first and foremost, his army.

  Other Roman generals before Caesar used their men’s loyalty as a political tool but no one did it better. It was clear at the time and it still shines through on the pages of Caesar’s Commentaries. The emotional heart of that work is not the senior officers but the centurions, the Roman equivalent of a captain. Caesar depicts their bravery, self-sacrifice, and professionalism. They repaid him in Rome, as political allies and more. His centurions even lent Caesar money before he crossed the Rubicon and started the Civil War in 49 B.C.

  Centurions were not poor. They probably came from the upper middle class—and, if not, they were paid well enough to end up there. By contrast, ordinary soldiers were very poor and they simply loved their chief. Not that Caesar responded sentimentally. Power, he once said, depended on only two things: soldiers and money. Caesar paid his men and worked magic with them. He cultivated a reputation for endurance and sharing the soldiers’ sacrifices. He shared his men’s risks, too. At the start of one engagement, for instance, he sent the officers’ horses away to make clear that it was a matter of do or die. He sent his own horse away first.

  Whether it was the little things, like leaving his hair and beard unshaven as a sign of mourning for heavy casualties, or the big ones, like giving out wages, loot, and land, Caesar took care of it all. The upshot was to make Caesar’s men “absolutely attached to him and absolutely steadfast.” What was said of Rome’s legendary founder, Romulus, could be said of Caesar, too:

  He was more pleasing to the masses than to the Senate but it was in the hearts of the soldiers that he was the most popular by far.

  When they marched in Caesar’s triumphs in 46 B.C. his soldiers, wearing military dress including proudly displayed decorations, shouted for joy and sang bawdy songs about Caesar’s sexual exploits. They also called out together, “If you do right, you will be punished, but if wrong, you will be king.” What they meant of course was that Caesar broke the law as consul and began a civil war, and yet dodged punishment and ended up on top. It’s said that Caesar was delighted to know that he and his men understood each other. But he didn’t leave the show of sympathy to mere words.

  Caesar gave his soldiers big cash bonuses at the triumphs. Each of his veterans got a lump sum of 6,000 denarii—more than twenty-five times a legionary’s annual wage of 225 denarii. Centurions received double this amount while military tribunes (colonels) and cavalry commanders
received four times—stupendous bonuses made possible only by Caesar’s enormous wealth, won in the spoils of war.

  It was a taste of things to come. The soldiers were the real power in Rome. In less than three years that would be obvious to everyone. For now, it was still possible to believe that the soldiers bowed their heads to the political authorities.

  Caesar counted on the support of the urban plebs and he made payments to them, too. The soldiers had no interest in sharing their wealth so they rioted in protest—and were crushed by him in turn. More than a quarter of a million male citizens were each eligible for 100 denarii. Then there were rent rebates, both in Rome and the rest of Italy—a boon to the poor. Caesar was not yet ready to agree with what, centuries later, the Roman emperor Septimius Severus told his sons on his deathbed: “Make the soldiers rich and pay no attention to anyone else.” Caesar knew that without the support of his legions, he couldn’t rule at all, but without the support of the people, he couldn’t rule in peace. So he had three of the rioting soldiers killed, two by ritual execution, and he displayed their heads outside his office.

  In addition to the soldiers and the urban plebs, Caesar built a new elite. Starting in Gaul he put together a team of advisors that included politicians, administrators, lawyers, propagandists, fixers, and bankers. They served as his gatekeepers, troubleshooters, spies, and hatchet men. Almost none of them came from Rome’s nobility; some were not even born Roman citizens; most came from the ranks of the upper classes of Italy, who were Roman citizens but by and large excluded from high office.

  The two most powerful of Caesar’s new elite were Gaius Oppius, a Roman knight, and Lucius Cornelius Balbus, a new citizen from Hispania. In the know and usually tight-lipped, they worked behind the scenes and served as Caesar’s eyes and ears. Balbus and Oppius were chiefs of staff, ministers of communications, and secretaries of the treasury combined. They pulled many strings in Rome. Cicero complained that Balbus was drawing up decrees and signing Cicero’s name to them without ever consulting him. In the old days, sighed Cicero, he was virtually helmsman on the Republic’s ship of state, but now he barely had a place in the hold.

  It was virtually impossible to see Caesar without going through them, as Cicero discovered to his displeasure. The process was not only wearisome but an affront to one’s dignitas—to think of the social inferiors with whom he had to rub shoulders! It would seem that Caesar himself recognized how unpopular his gatekeepers made him. Caesar supposedly said that if a man like Cicero had to wait to see him, then everyone, including Cicero, must have really hated him. Evidently Caesar felt that as unfortunate as this was, there was no alternative.

  CAESAR’S REFORMS

  While Caesar stayed in his villa at Labici, waiting to enter the capital, he might have considered how much he had already changed Rome. The year before he had passed a dazzling series of laws that advanced the country in everything from the grain dole to the calendar and from the countryside to new colonies abroad.

  To the urban plebs he brought handouts, entertainment, and debt relief—but not enough to hurt the wealthy. To his supporters in the provinces he brought Roman citizenship. To leading Roman knights he opened up public offices and seats in the Senate, which he eventually expanded from 600 to 900. A few of Caesar’s new senators were citizens who came from Italian Gaul and probably even from Gaul across the Alps. To the former supporters of Pompey he offered pardons and promotions. He used his massive wealth to purchase new friends including senators who got low-or no-interest loans as well as freedmen and even slaves who had influence with their masters.

  Caesar offered land for his veterans and grain for the urban poor, but with a sting—he reduced the number of those on the grain dole and began plans to move large numbers of the city’s poor to new colonies abroad. Eighty thousand colonists were settled by the time of his death. He helped debtors by decreeing that land be valued at pre–Civil War prices, but he refused to forgive people’s debts altogether, which reassured creditors. At the same time he encouraged the immigration of doctors and teachers to Rome.

  Caesar limited the term of provincial governors to two years—he didn’t want anyone else using his province as a springboard to supreme power as he had used Gaul. He increased the number of public officials, which both responded to the press of public business and gave jobs to his friends. But his most important administrative reform by far concerned the calendar. Rome’s lunar calendar, based on a year of about 354 days, was out of sync with the seasons. Caesar put through an epoch-making reform—the solar calendar of 365 days plus leap year that is still in use today by most of the world (with a few adjustments in the 1700s A.D.). The new calendar started on January 1, 45 B.C.

  As for the capital city, Caesar replaced republican austerity with imperial pomp and sealed it with a dynasty’s stamp. And at the center of everything, dictator and nearly demigod, stood Caesar.

  CITY OF MARBLE

  Caesar followed his triumphs in Rome in September 46 B.C. with a series of spectacular public banquets and games, including gladiatorial games dedicated to his daughter, Julia, nine years after her death. It was the first such event held in honor of a daughter. Even more unusual, the games were combined with those for the inauguration of a new temple, the Temple of Venus Genetrix—Mother Venus, which was dedicated on September 26. This was major, and in fact, it marked nothing less than the start of a monumental rebuilding of the heart of Rome. As in other things, Caesar was following in Pompey’s footsteps.

  Pompey built a spectacular new complex as a memorial of his triumph of 61 B.C. and his success in the East. Pompey had freed the sea of pirates, defeated the terrible rebel King Mithradates of Pontus, and won the Republic a new and glittering set of provinces and protectorates. The new complex consisted of two interconnected parts, the Portico of Pompey and the Theater of Pompey. The Romans sometimes referred to the whole thing as Pompey’s Works. Although its outline can be traced in today’s street plan—and even in the footprints of some of the buildings—little of the structure survives. Still, the complex was every bit as iconic in its day as the Colosseum would be later.

  Pompey’s Works included Rome’s first permanent theater, what was in effect Rome’s first public park, a temple to Venus the Victorious (Pompey’s personal goddess of Victory), art galleries, shops, government offices, and a new Senate House, including a statue of Pompey. The whole thing was a gigantic monument to an overbearing general who threatened to suffocate the liberty of the Republic by his ego and ambition.

  From its dedication in 55 B.C., Pompey’s Works was immensely popular. A year later Caesar launched a big new project of his own, the Forum Julium, or Caesar’s Forum. Like the Portico of Pompey, it was to be a colonnaded, rectangular space with a temple to Venus, but Caesar dedicated his temple to “Mother Venus” because Venus was founder both of Caesar’s family and the Roman people, so the change from Victorious to Mother did double duty.

  In front of the Temple of Mother Venus stood a statue of Caesar on horseback in a conquering pose made famous by Alexander the Great. Adjacent to the Forum there would be a new Senate House, the Julian Senate House (Curia Julia), named for Julius Caesar’s family, the Julii.

  Unlike Pompey’s Works, Caesar’s Forum did not include a theater, but Caesar planned to build one relatively close by (eventually, it became the Theater of Marcellus, completed under Augustus and still partially standing). Nor was there a park but, as we shall see, Caesar had a plan to outdo Pompey on that score. Best of all, and unlike Pompey’s Works, Caesar’s Forum had a central location in Rome, adjacent to the Roman Forum. Pompey’s Works was located in the Field of Mars, about half a mile away, on the low-lying plain between the republican city walls and the bend of the River Tiber. Caesar planted his flag practically in the center of Roman power. The real estate alone cost a fortune, nearly enough to fund Rome’s armies for a generation.

  The Temple housed a statue of Venus by Arcesilaus, a prominent Greek sculptor in Rome. Other
decorations in the temple—all gifts to the goddess—included priceless paintings, engraved gems, and a breastplate of British pearls. Finally there was that gilded statue of Cleopatra.

  Caesar’s new Forum and Senate House were just the beginning. He ordered a complete overhaul of Rome’s most important political real estate, the Assembly Place, located in front of the Senate House. There would be a new assembly space, a new Speaker’s Platform, and, just beyond it to the east, a new judicial complex, the Julian Court Building, also named after Caesar’s family. He arranged for the construction in the Field of Mars of a huge marble colonnade to be used for elections—called the Julian Enclosure. It all represented an unfriendly takeover of the Republic’s most hallowed ground by one family. Ironically, although Caesar expanded the spaces for public speeches and elections, he made them irrelevant. Behind the scenes, the dictator pulled the strings and decided who would or wouldn’t hold office.

  There was more. Caesar planned a great new Temple of Mars, the war god, and a library to rival the famous Library of Alexandria. To end the problem of the city’s frequent floods, he ordered the River Tiber to be diverted from the center of Rome. He also planned a major port for the mouth of the Tiber at Ostia, located about twenty miles southwest of Rome.

  It is tempting to imagine Caesar and Cleopatra planning such projects together as a way of bringing Rome up to the grandeur of Alexandria—of making it a city worthy of Caesar. Then again, public works projects represented jobs for the poor and contracts to be awarded strategically; both were ways for Caesar to increase his support.