by Jack Lindsay
Caesar is Dead
Jack Lindsay
Copyright © Jack Lindsay 1934
The right of Jack Lindsay to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1934 by The Edinburgh Press.
This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
For Colin Still to whom both author and book owe more than can easily be stated in the brief space of a dedication.
The date of the action is 44-43 B.C.
Table of Contents
I AM NO KING BUT CAESAR
I — THE SCAPEGOAT
II — THE VICTIM
CAESAR IS DEAD
III — HERE IS FREEDOM
IV — THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE
V — A COMPROMISE IS ARRANGED
VI — WHERE A TESTAMENT IS, THERE MUST ALSO OF NECESSITY BE THE DEATH OF THE TESTATOR
THE DIVINE CAESAR
VII — THERE IS A LULL
VIII — AN ALTAR IS BUILT
IX — A MARTYR TESTIFIES
LONG LIVE CAESAR
X — A CLAIMANT TO THE INHERITANCE
XI — CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS
XII — REVOLUTION
I AM NO KING BUT CAESAR
I — THE SCAPEGOAT
Between the base of the Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus there ran a busy street of shops, taverns, and trade-offices, opening out into the Forum Boarium. Along this street a man came hobbling and twisting. But instead of blocking his way the people stood aside, cheering and pelting him with copper coins, pebbles, rotten fruit, and old shoes. The man was dressed in heavy skins tied and buckled securely, and as he ran he grinned ahead with a set look, a glare of fear and placation. Behind him came the Salian priests of Mars, nodding their helmets, beating at their skin-drums, while the dance-leader every now and then lashed out with a spear-shaft at the man in skins. Small boys supplemented the blows, darting across the roadway, tumbling among the rhythmical feet of the priests, shouting, “Drive him out! Drive out Mamurius Veturius! Send him to the Oscans!”
The crowd cheered and pelted. Old Mars, the greybeard Year, the last Corn-sheaf, was being thrashed out, and with him went all the sins of the dead year, all the omissions and repentances, the doubts and weaknesses. The new year would be strong and insolent, certain of purpose, clean-limbed. The man in goatskins was the cursed goat of redemption. He was cursed, and he saved. He took away the sins that cursed the others.
On the side of the hill there were terraces and stairways leading up to the old Temple of Iuppiter Victor. People were crowding down from the Palatine to see what was causing the noise. The two lovers paused, pleased at being crushed together in a corner against the stone balustrade.
“What is it, darling?” she asked. She wondered if it had anything to do with the war that Caesar was launching against Parthia; but she didn’t care, as long as her man didn’t have to enlist.
“Only some old foolishness,” he replied, squeezing her hand against him. Behind them rose the temple built of squared masses of volcanic tufa covered with peeling stucco, the March sun glistening on the figures in the terracotta gable. There was a fine view below. The great oblong of the Circus Maximus, the sweeping lines of tiers, and the walls beyond, on the right the market thronged with traders and pantry-slaves buying for their masters, huxters, carriers from the docks, some with trucks, others with laden donkeys or with bales on their heads. In the centre of the market stood the bronze figure of a Bull, and nearby rose the round-shaped shrine of Hercules, god of masculine good-faith. Further still loomed the crowded quarter of the Aventine Hill and the dockyards on the Tiber-banks.
“Drive out the old Mars! Drive out Mamurius Veturius!” cried the crowd. Many of them knew nothing of the rite and could not even catch the correct name with which to abuse the shambling figure. But they gathered the emotion, the religion of the gesture. Slaves from the wild hills of northern Spain jostling with Arabs from Ituraea recognised something that awoke memories of the rites of home, the promise of security that had proved false and been forever broken. But, slave or free, they were all now members of the family of Rome, and, without regret or hostility, for a moment, they were united in happily pelting out the past, the defeated curse, and in praying for Rome’s greater security. The Jew remembered the scapegoat sent out into the wilderness as an atonement-offering, and closed his face more darkly than ever against the Gentiles who thus indulged in a mockery of the true law declared by Yahwe for Aaron; the Massiliot remembered the prisoner fattened for a year in time of stress or plague and then hurled from a cliff; the Athenian remembered the spring festival of Thargelia when a man and woman, condemned criminals, were put to death near the seacoast for the state’s increase, neckletted with figs, beaten with fig-rods, and burnt on a pyre of wild-figwood. Someone had to die for the good of others; one man for the multitude; and a fine custom it was as long as it wasn’t oneself that was summoned.
A trader in glassware watched the noisy crowd irritably. “We don’t need these old customs. Haven’t we got Caesar to look after us?”
“Don’t talk too soon,” said an elderly man at his side. “You’ll have something different to say if some of these confiscation laws get passed. There’s enough talk about them. We’re only piling up money out of our sweat for rascals to steal.”
“I’m piling up nothing,” laughed the other, a man with sharp, shifty eyes, “except some debts. Caesar’s the man for the modern world. Old methods won’t work today. Money was made to be spent.”
The elderly man shook his head and turned away. Fine talk for prodigals. Wealth was possession, money in chests or jars, land, workable slaves. Everything was for show nowadays; and the cant about keeping money in circulation was only an excuse. Men pretended ledger-entries were money. Reverently he repeated some of the traditional phrases as Mamurius Veturius panted past.
Upon the hillside the lovers whispered, heard by everyone around them.
“Isn’t it a lovely view?”
“It would be if all the houses were trees and there was nobody here to watch us — or if it was only night-time.” Ah, night was the lover’s house. He leaned over the railing and whispered tentatively, “Let’s go down outside the gates — past the Aventine. There’s lots of quiet among the tombs there. Only a few caretakers worried that someone will make a mess on their monuments.” He watched her with tender face, fearful that she’d refuse. It was such a long walk.
“I’d love it.”
They went pushing their way down the stairs, still clasping hands.
The goatman who was the rejected Year, the spent energy of the Earth, was stumbling round the corner.
“Yah, run away, old man Mars,” cried the boys, viciously, hating the skin-clad figure as if he were a personal enemy.
The lady, whose shopping-litter was held up by the crush, stopped stroking the folded square of muslin-silk that she had bought along the Vicus Tuscus, and lifted up the gold-tasselled leather-hangings. Thank Iuno it wasn’t a long procession. She saw a brawny Dardanian slave staring at her and passing his tongue along his lips. She flushed. How dare the man. It was one thing to give a slave at home orders for one’s amusement, another thing for a matron to be stared at in public. Trash, lower your eyes, or I’ll buy you and have them poked out. Her elbow was stiff and cramped.
Pass by, Old Year. Be off to the dirty Oscans. Be off anywhere else, and leave Rome, the capital of the world, to its prosperous New Year. In a few days Caesar sets out to conquer the East. He’ll bring home the wealth of the Persians and Indians; and Rome will be safe and rich forever. So swore the veterans, who had trooped along to Rome to give their old general
a good send-off, as now they came staggering out of the taverns, wiping their lips on the back of their hands, to see the dying Year go past, the old man of the Earth, the Fox in the Corn, the Enemy.
“Hey, there goes the King of Parthia!” they bawled. “Give him a good kick for Caesar. Tread on him. Free drinks for all and a world worth living in!”
The lady hastily closed her litter-curtain and sat nervously stroking the silk. What was going to happen to the world? There was no respect anywhere. Her nail caught in a tight knot and almost pulled out the thread. O had she spoilt the cloth? If she had, she’d give someone a bad time when she reached home.
The soldiers were throwing coins to the boys. “A gold-piece for the one that kicks him in the guts and lays him out.”
The Old Year passed the corner and was gone. Grumbling, the soldiers retreated to the taverns, arms about one another’s shoulders. The crowd wavered and melted away. The stall-owners were counting goods. Pickpockets slid behind pillars to examine their pilferings. The slaves at the shop-doors called once again the goods for sale within. The girls with whitelead-caked faces chattered back into the dens under the Circus. A kindly hawker threw some slop-water in the face of an old woman who had fainted. A small girl was wailing for her lost mother. The market settled down once more to business.
*
This day was 14th March. In the noble mansion which had once belonged to the great general Pompeius, the consul Marcus Antonius reclined, trying to think while his wife and his two brothers drank and argued beside him. “Didn’t I tell you I wouldn’t drink?” he said, thrusting away a cup of wine.
“Hark to him,” jeered Gaius. He had something of his brother’s florid handsomeness, but in a sleeker, diminutive way. There was always a sly smile about his mouth, whereas Marcus, with his broad face, large low brow, aquiline nose, thin underlip, and fair tousled hair, seemed entirely frank and easy-tempered. Lucius, the third brother, was more gaunt; his hair was darker and his face more furrowed; across his left cheek and jaw ran the scar of an ugly wound.
Getting no reply, Gaius tossed off the cup that he had been offering. “Poor Marcus can’t milk the udders of the vine today. He wants goat’s milk to give his voice a good bleat. For he’s got to talk to the nasty Senate tomorrow and put wicked little Dolabella in his place.”
Marcus looked up for a moment as if he meant to hit Gaius, then he roared with laughter and lay back holding on to his ribs. The room echoed with the hearty sound. “You’re right,” he said, recovering. “I’m scared I’ll spew all over them. Do you remember that actor’s wedding-party? I drank so much that I spewed in the tribunal next morning. Hercules! Give me a drink. It makes me sweat to think of it, and yet my enemies say I didn’t blush. But the lictor preserved order in the court. What a great man.”
His brow wrinkled with the effort of thought and he pushed back his curly hair. He was determined to stop Dolabella from being appointed consul-elect to act as his colleague while Caesar was away. Let Caesar say what he liked. Dolabella was a waster; he had seduced Antonia, the cousin-wife whom Marcus had divorced to marry Fulvia.
Fulvia now leaned forward from the corner where she had been quietly sitting. “You hate that young loon Dolabella so much,” she said, “that it looks to me as if you still regretted losing Antonia.” She was a slight woman, with sallow face delicately modelled except for a heavy chin. Her deep-set eyes glinted savagely as she spoke, and she sat sagging in sullen suspicion, her clasped hands pressing against her navel.
“Nonsense,” replied Marcus. “There wasn’t any real proof of adultery.” Neither was there; but Antonia had looked so confused that evening, she must have been up to something. She was a big-eyed slut, always giggling or weeping. If she hadn’t been unfaithful, she’d dreamed about it, and she showed her thoughts in the corners of her eyes. But anybody except Dolabella would have been forgiven. The man was too conceited, setting up as a mob-champion while still in the early twenties.
“You know you can’t stop Dolabella from becoming consul when Caesar wants it,” said Gaius, who was determined to argue. “Who are you, my dear over-muscular brother, to rub the red ochre off the face of Iuppiter? You know Clodius abolished the power of augural obstruction years ago.”
“Only with regard to legislation,” insisted Marcus, who, as augur, had declared Dolabella’s election invalid. “And I don’t care anyway. I’m an augur, and while the state holds by religion I’ll keep on finding omens to put Dolabella out of things, and when the omens give out, I’ll try knocking heads together.”
“You haven’t answered me yet,” said Fulvia.
“I have,” said Marcus, looking at her guilelessly. “The only decent act Dolabella ever did was to give me a good excuse for divorcing Antonia and taking you on. But that shan’t bail him out. I’ll see omens till there aren’t any more bad dreams left in a wine-cask.”
“Gaius talks the only sense,” said Lucius, moodily. “You’ll have to give in sooner or later, and then you’ll be laughed at. If you really want your own back, you ought to have the lad stuck some dark night when he’s out serenading a wolf-sty. You’re wasting your time with these political moves. Caesar has the last word. He’s merely playing with the pair of you.”
“Give me some more wine,” replied Marcus. “I’m thirsty, and I’ve got to do a lot of talking tomorrow. Come on, Fulvia. Don’t be hard on us. Let’s have some chorus girls along tonight, and some clowns.”
Gaius groaned. “O that I should ever live to see my big brother so frightened of his wife.”
“I’m not frightened,” said Marcus with a bellow of laughter. “I’ve simply learned caution. Come here, Fulvia.” She rose and walked reluctantly across. Her lean body moved gracefully, thrust forward, swaying from the hips. Marcus raised himself, caught her round the waist, and drew her down on the couch, rolling her over and laughing at her. She pulled herself away and struggled up. A new Fulvia seemed born out of the tussle. Her eyes glinted, but this time with merriment; her carefully drawn-back hair had come loose, and the tress that fell over her eyes was curling provocatively; her hands fluttered lightly as she tidied herself, humming an Egyptian love-tune.
“Bring them all along,” she said. “We’ll amuse ourselves tonight. No politics.”
“You’re a remarkable woman,” said Gaius, kissing her hand. “The sort that produces triplets, or invents a new kind of pork-pasty. I’m glad to have you as a sister. But please don’t ever marry me.”
Lucius stood glowering at the side, but Marcus threw himself back on the couch, roaring with laughter. “She’d eat you up, Gaius,” he said, “and not even show a swelling under her belly-band.”
Gaius was counting on his fingers. “Send for Lucilla and Psyche and Lalage. That will be enough as far as I’m concerned.”
“And send for a cask of Mamertine,” said Lucius. “That will be enough for me.”
“And Fulvia will be enough for me,” said Marcus. “I only keep the rest of the world to give me a good laugh between times — yes, you two brigands included.”
*
Men passing up and down the streets. Slaves at a jog-trot repeating messages blankly over and over in their heads and muddling them out of fear of a whipping. Slaves with only a rare covetous glance to spare for the world of women and pease-pudding. Contractors discussing the profits expected from their tenders of war-supplies. Small tradesmen arguing with their creditors. “Wait till Caesar comes back from the Parthian War.” Taverners thinking of the wine that would splash in the gutters when the veterans returned.
In the attics of the tenement the half-starved labourer pleading with his sick wife. “Don’t worry. Haven’t you heard that Caesar means to divert the Tiber? There’ll be lots of work then.”
Land-estate agents furtively buying up land around the Vatican Hills. “If the Tiber’s diverted, the Field of Mars will be built over, and the Vatican Field will be needed for public buildings. We’ll be able to get our own price for it.”
Crowds besieging the unemployment bureaus, scanning the lists on the Forum pillars, scared that they’ll lose their dole of corn; squabbling in the tenements where the bailiffs were making inquiries to sift out the poor with no resources from those with means. Clamouring at the emigration offices. Caesar had planned colonies all round the Mediterranean: in the corn-growing areas, at the points where mercantile contacts were essential.
“But my cousin who’s a sailor told me it’s so cold in the Crimea your toes drop off, and a man has to make water down his trouser-leg.”
Caesar. Everywhere the name was heard. Caesar. Blessings or curses, all arguments returned to Caesar. All hopes or fears depended on what Caesar did. The banker looking with dull eyes out of his cool offices in the Exchange and reckoning the effect of Caesar’s departure on the loan rate; the girls in the lupanar hoping for a Triumph and a city-full of riotous soldiers crammed with money; the lawyer indignant that the dictatorship has severed the courts from politics; the capitalists terrified of communist legislation and yet pleased to see new markets of exploitation opened up; the populace, angry and hopeful at the suggestion of work, talking of new shows, demanding free rents and cancelled mortgages — all were looking to Caesar, dictator of Rome and the world.
*
Many of the trees had not yet recovered their summer coats; but there were pines and firs among them, and bushes already green. Banks of violets in a rockery stood at one side of the path that led back to the rambling neat house; and wallflowers sprinkled the grass. There was seclusion in the garden of the banker Atticus, though it looked down on the Vicus Longus, filled with shops and shrines and small basilicas, and, at the foot of the Quirinal, the bustling district of Argiletum. Atticus was sitting in the peaceful sunlight with a napkin over his face, when his friend Cicero, the great orator and spokesman of the defeated Republic, was announced. Cicero, now in his sixty-eighth year, was still vigorous; his heavily-lined face still stared hard out on the world; his tongue never faltered; he was even more restlessly energetic than in his youth. Much of the good-nature had faded out; but his smiles, deep with kindliness, showed all the more expansively from the settled gloom of his face.