Caesar is Dead

by Jack Lindsay

  Antonius and Dolabella were conversing in low voices, and without straining she heard snatches of what they said. Antonius wanted the provinces of Gaul after all; Dolabella was to keep Syria. They would jointly introduce a law re-alloting the provinces. Decimus Brutus could have Further Gaul till the end of the year, then he was to go to Macedonia. “But before he gets Macedonia, I’ll have the legions taken away — brought over here.” “Don’t forget I’ve got Trebonius next door to me in Asia. I’ll have to do some quick work.” “It won’t be safe to leave Decimus in Cisalpine Gaul while the usurer’s grand-daughter is seducing the populace and offering them other people’s money. He swears he’ll pay the 300 sesterces per head. I wish him luck.”

  Gallus kept calling loudly to have his glass refilled. Perhaps Cytheris would notice and pity him — not that he wanted her pity. Suddenly he realised someone was speaking to him. Nicias had said something and everyone was looking his way.

  “You’re a man of Bacchic silence,” said Dolabella.

  Nicias had said something about poetry. Gallus was drunk, quickly, sickly drunk. The blood tingled about his ears and he spoke thickly. He wanted to astonish, to put these people in their places.

  “I’m a poet, yes. And an ’xtraordinary good one.” He had sufficient control of his mind to know that the boast was futile, misplaced, boorish, and badly expressed; but he exulted in having made it. “I’ll write better’n anyone here. Give me a tablet. Challenge you all.” He had had a perfect idea. He would write out the strongest of his abusive elegies and put the name Cytheris in, pretending that it was impromptu. That would show everyone.

  He lifted himself up shakily on his hands, refusing to look at Cytheris.

  “I’ll take the challenge,” said Dolabella, who like all the members of the cultured class wrote verses. “And our theme will be Cytheris.” He said this without the slightest notion how appropriate it was, but merely because he wished to bring Cytheris more under the notice of Antonius and because he had composed a few days ago an epigram which he could use.

  Gallus was aware that he had been speaking crudely, but in his drunkenness he had no idea how crudely. His drunkenness suffused the simple words with all the unspoken images of his boastful mood; and though he felt unpleasantly flurried, he thought his gesture had not been lacking in glorious abandon. He waited impatiently for the tablets.

  The guests buzzed with pleased anticipation. Dolabella took his tablet, and after a decent show of meditating scribbled his inspired contribution to the game. The guests watched him admiringly; and no one looked attentively at Gallus, except Cytheris, or they would have seen his face pinched with effort and slowly achieving a greenish pallor, while sweat ran into his eyes. For his mind had gone entirely blank; he could neither remember a single verse he had ever written or compose new verses. His head merely rang with “Cytheris, Cytheris.”

  Dolabella waved his tablet. “Time’s up. Shall I read first?” He looked at Gallus, and Gallus nodded with dazed acquiescence, glad to postpone even for a few moments the awful confession that he had written nothing.

  Dolabella read out his lines in a voice that had the faintest echo of a lisp:

  The Bankrupted Lover and his Lady

  Why buy such costly clothes when you defeat

  the other girls the less you take to dress?

  “Pitying them, with dresses I compete;

  pitying you, I strive with nakedness.

  Don’t slay my pity then, or you will view

  my body bare for them but clothed for you.”

  The company applauded, and Dolabella graciously threw the tablet into the lap of Cytheris as she lay with legs drawn up. Then everyone turned to Gallus. The sweat was blinding his eyes.

  “I haven’t written anything,” he said, in anguish. “The wax is too slippery.”

  There was a burst of laughter, and the guests rolled about on the couches. Antonius clapped and then held his ribs. Gallus watched in a dull horror. He didn’t quite know what was wrong with his remark, but its reception showed that it had ruined his life forever. He was ridiculous, damned to the level of a buffoon; he’d never outlive the story; he’d leave Rome and go back to his hometown beyond the Alps, Forum Iulii, where the rents of the property he owned would keep him in comfort.

  Cytheris saw his anguished face and couldn’t bear it. She rose from her couch.

  “When you’ve all done laughing,” she said, “I’ll recite you something. Some poems you’ve never heard before.”

  At once there was a hush. She stood in a reposeful attitude and spoke without elocutionary emphases and posturings, beginning in an almost inaudible tone. Then strength crept into her voice, and with it a resonant pleading, rising and falling in intonation, so powerful in its urgency that a whole life’s plea was packed into the structure of emotion which she created out of the poem’s veering mood. She broke into a passionate vituperation; she dropped back into an intimate whisper again; she rose to a joyous demand, so that it seemed the hopeful cry of the words was proudly conscious of its sure sensibility, an exquisiteness which was its own reward, a gratification beyond attainment or loss.

  Gallus listened, entranced with an ecstasy greater than he had thought vouchsafed to a mortal. For she was reciting his poems.

  She ceased and stood there, without any show of emotion on her face, awaiting a comment.

  “Magnificent!” cried Dolabella, who had a genuine taste for verse. “Who wrote it all? Why, it’s really great.”

  Nicias looked at Gallus, for he alone knew who the author was, having remembered some lines of the elegy that Gallus had shown him. At last he saw virtue in the poem; the originality lay, not so much in the lines separately considered, as in the new shape made out of varying emotions combined.

  “Who wrote it, Cytheris?” everyone inquired. Even Antonius was affected; he had always considered Cytheris the best actress of the day; but by all the Venuses there was something remarkable in her tonight. She reminded him of unattainable things — Cleopatra, the face of Caesar ...

  Cytheris pointed to Gallus, who lay gasping, his hair drooping over his face.

  “He wrote it all ... to me.” She moved across to his couch. “Come on home with me, dear.”

  Gallus rose, miraculously with dignity, and took her arm. They walked out.

  “Well, I’m damned,” said Dolabella. “After that I’ll give up writing poetry and take to politics instead.”

  *

  Next day the two consuls promulgated the law for the Change of Provincial Appointments, which was tantamount to a deposition of Decimus Brutus. Decimus meanwhile, to raise money, hearten his troops, and accustom them to obeying his commands, had marched off to quell and loot some unruly Alpine tribes.

  The Senate had been summoned for August 1st, to finalise the arrangement about Brutus and Cassius; and Piso, Calpurnia’s father, alone had the courage to oppose Antonius; but he found no support. The Senators were too afraid of the veterans; they were no longer upheld with the strength which had been theirs on March 17th. Antonius replied with scorn.

  The report of his speech reached Brutus and Cassius at Neapolis. Brutus at once insisted on drawing up yet another manifesto; and when Cassius wanted to alter a few words, he swore that he’d go into exile if a word of his opinions was tampered with. The manifesto appeared, drawn up in firmly laconic phrases, announcing that “threats had no influence on free men,” and bidding Antonius take note, “not how long Caesar lived, but how short a time he reigned.”

  A man who tried to post the manifesto up at Rome was trampled by the mob.

  Antonius announced that many rights must now be restored to the people: the right of appeal from a capital sentence, for example. Also the jury system must be reformed; military officers and centurions must be made eligible. This proposal was the worst blow yet made at the upper-class control of the courts, and was received with horror by the conservatives.

  Money was unobtainable, and distress was growing. />
  *

  Octavianus reclined on a couch, and watched his mother and sister, who sat sewing.

  “Dearest,” said his mother, Atia, anxiously, but preserving her cool aristocratic tones, “why must you be so reckless?”

  “I’m not reckless,” he answered gently. “Who could be more careful than I am?”

  “Why don’t you go back to the University?”

  “I must fulfil the obligations laid on me.”

  “You know it isn’t necessary in law — and the adoption was only by codicil. You could easily repudiate.”

  “Don’t let us quarrel,” said Octavianus, and there was a silence. He closed his eyes, and then looked up to see Octavia leaning over him, her hand resting on his brow. How calm, how sculptural her clear face, yet how loving her eyes with their long lashes.

  “You know you can’t stand the strain,” she said, in her soft tones. Her fingers encircled his wrist and lifted up his hand. “Your pulse is too fast by far.”

  He removed his hand, took hers, and raised it to his lips. “You’re the sweetest sister, but you don’t understand.”

  But he himself didn’t understand. Surely it was useless to fight when he didn’t even know what he was fighting to gain? The people liked him because he had promised them the gardens and the largess. But he had no power, none whatever. The conservatives couldn’t possibly want Caesar’s heir; and Antonius, his natural ally, refused to associate with him. The Caesarian party was disrupted, and even its remnant was not his.

  What use then to continue claiming his dangerous inheritance? The people shouted round him in the streets, but the veterans were naturally bound to their fellow-veteran Antonius. Yet there was something in the response of the people that was real. That, and an unknown voice of his own heart, kept him to the task. The only supporters that he had were men whom he wholly distrusted, as he knew they distrusted him. The extreme conservatives, knowing of his breech with Antonius, were hoping to use him against the threat of revolution expressed by the Land Bill, against the last of the Caesarians. That would be a bad joke, if it didn’t show how perilously placed he was.

  But, worse still, he knew himself to be a physical coward. He was liable to faint or have fits at the sight of blood; he couldn’t bear it; the very thought made him want to vomit. He trembled with disgust and fear as he contemplated entering the political arena, disowned by all sides, trusting only to a name — a name not even his by birth. Caesar.

  But he couldn’t go back; and he had one good friend, Agrippa, who had come from Apollonia with him. Neither of the youths had influence or backing; but Agrippa was personally brave. Perhaps it was because he, Octavianus, didn’t like to fall below his friend’s standard that he was going ahead with things. Perhaps it was that obstinate need in himself which he couldn’t grasp. Without policy, without hope, without courage, without power, he meant to challenge this world of interlocked forces which ignored him.

  A servant stumbled into the room, with face blanched. They were coming. Who was coming? He didn’t know; but there was a crowd coming down the street, men with swords, soldiers, men shouting. The noise already penetrated to the inner room.

  “Bar and bolt all the doors,” said Octavianus. This was the end. Antonius had suborned agitators to bring the mob along and murder him. It was a very unsatisfying end, but that couldn’t be helped.

  He kissed his mother and sister, who with the meek pride of their blood showed no signs of the agitation they felt, their minds busy with plans for his protection. Then he went out of the room. He climbed the roof-stairs and came out on the roof, sheltering behind some flower-urns. He saw the sunlight on a petal, and the sweetness of life flooded him. A thousand years of meditation could not plumb the intense radiation of one pulse of sweet sensibility, its meaning of beauty. He wanted to live.

  The crowd had filled the street, noisily shoving. He tried to intuit their purpose; but all mobs were senseless, repellent — the antithesis of that individual moment of realising the bodily sweetness of time. This mob might be friendly or wild with lust for revenge; he couldn’t tell. And yet he loved the people. Then he heard the street grow ominously silent. Someone spoke, and there was a cheer.

  Surely the mob was friendly. Fixing upon his quivering nerves a fatalistic acceptance, a memory of the faces of his mother and sister — so loving, so frightened, so gently calm — he walked to the rail of the flat roof and raised his arm. One of the mob saw him and shouted, pointing up. All eyes turned skywards; there was a tumultuous cheer.

  Octavianus smiled. He was not to die yet.

  “Send in your leaders,” he called, and turned to go below.

  Three soldiers were waiting for him in the hall. They told him how it pained the people to see their two champions, Antonius and Octavianus, quarrelling; it was absolutely necessary for a reconciliation to be made. Octavianus smiled and agreed. The soldiers were filled with joy. They seized his hand and kissed it, declaring that they were going off to report to Antonius what he said. Antonius too must agree.

  As they were going out, Agrippa came shoving his way through the men that blocked the entrance. He ran to Octavianus, a strong youth with curling hair and small nose.

  “I heard you were being killed,” he cried, and jokingly shook his fist at the soldiers. There were tears of worry and relief in his eyes. The two friends embraced and kissed.

  “I shan’t die yet,” said Octavianus.

  The door shut behind the soldiers, and he began coughing violently. His chest felt as though it were stuck through with heated swords. But he didn’t mind, as long as he didn’t spit blood. He put his hand to his mouth and looked at the spittle. No, there was no blood, Apollo be thanked.

  Agrippa was holding him tenderly in his arms. He laid him down on the couch. Octavia smoothed out the cushions and straightened her brother’s head, while Atia hurried out to get a mixture of warm milk, honey, and wine.

  “I’m perfectly all right,” said Octavianus, smiling at his sister and his friend. Life was infinitely beautiful. He was loved, and asked no more. He held out his two hands, one to Octavia and one to Agrippa. “That will heal me. The feel of your dear blood warming into mine. I need nothing else. I shan’t die.”

  No, he wouldn’t die. He saw the future, and he wouldn’t flinch, however he was tortured. He was Caesar.

  *

  Antonius could not refuse the appeal and demand of the soldiers. Visits were exchanged between him and Octavianus, and Octavianus promised support for the law of Provincial Appointments. But neither tried to hide his aversion from the other. The Law was passed, in a Forum guarded by armed soldiers.

  Antonius was stirred by alternate desires for withdrawal and for a violent outlet of his emotions. He had no plans of his own, and let Lucius and Fulvia do his thinking for him. He was drinking heavily and growing brutalised. Rome was a death-trap, and he wanted to get out of it; Caesar had died there, slain by his friends, deserted by Antonius; Caesar had been the one to control men and events. By Hercules, his stature was more apparent daily now in a world that visibly fell apart through lack of him. Antonius found that the sense of rivalry with Octavianus, Caesar’s heir, was deadening more and more his previous contempt for the mob’s deification of Caesar. He could play up to such fustian as well as Octavianus; and as soon as he begun to play up to it, he felt drawn into the current of something enormously powerful, a dark rage and exultation that merged with the persecution-fears and releases thickened by his drunkenness.

  He spent as much time as he could with his soldiers, drinking and horseplaying with them; and their faith and resentment overlaid his mind. By God, he’d make the world safe and easy for these fellows, and he’d pull down out of their smug riches all the nobles who’d betrayed Caesar. By God, he’d tear up the roots of things. These simple fellows had the clue; they wanted only women, food, wine, and a worthy flag to follow. They would have their wish. The fermenting emotion of the populace crept into his blood, and he was glad t
o surrender to it.

  Fulvia was taking money out of his chests to buy up the fine estates that were coming into the depressed market. Let her have the money. More would be found. The sword would tickle the moneylenders off their dungheaps. Distress was increasing among the mercantile and business classes. Antonius roared with laughter, and ordered the four best legions quartered in Macedonia to take ship for Italy.

  This was a man’s game. Let the soft-cheeked boy squat on his gilded chair and cry for mother’s milk.

  XI — CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS

  Cicero was well started off for Greece; but, blown back to Italy by contrary winds, he heard how Brutus had written begging all patriots to attend the Senate. Some visitors hinted that his duty lay at Rome. Tired and old as he felt, he could not resist the call. When he heard how Piso had protested, he believed that there was still spirit left among the senators. He set off for Rome, and arrived on the last day of August. Next day there was to be a session, and Antonius had announced that he would propose “on every occasion of Thanksgiving a special day should be appropriated for offerings to the Divine Caesar.” Also Brutus and Cassius were to be given Crete and Cyrene, unimportant districts, for provinces.

  The proposal about the Divine Caesar was a declaration against the whole basis of oligarchic rationalism on which the Roman tradition had come to rest. It was infinitely more revolutionary than even the fact of Caesar’s dictatorship had been. It signalled a new era, and for Antonius it meant an end of hiding and half-measures. He was no longer a careerist or a man of compromising good-will. He was the spokesman of the people and the soldiers, exalted into dark menace.