Caesar is Dead

by Jack Lindsay

  He had no life of his own. He had forgotten that any such life had ever been.

  Meanwhile he played the game that Lepidus wanted; and this too suited his mood, his absorption in the routine of the army as something satisfying in itself. Without thought he was dramatising himself as the legionary aroused to a half-drunken devotion and comprehension of the world’s dark purposes, appealing, fighting for a faith, fighting to be understood and given a sense of worth.

  Lepidus had entrenched strongly at Forum Voconii, and Antonius led up his army and camped on the other side of a little stream, the Argenteus.

  Silanus and another officer (who in charge of the outposts had surrendered to Antonius) appeared before Lepidus, and were mildly reprimanded. As Lepidus wrote in his report, “out of pity” he did not punish them further. He allowed a bridge of boats to be built between the two camps, and welcomed agents from Antonius, who pretended to be deserters. With a quiet chuckle he wrote to Rome that the army of Antonius was “visibly melting away” and that the legions would not fail in their duty.

  His one officer seriously loyal to the Senate, Laterensis, reported that messengers were coming and going; that the soldiers were being incited by their officers; that the soldiers were talking together in groups. Lepidus thanked him for his zeal.

  Then Antonius, dishevelled and with unkempt beard, appeared on the bank of the Argenteus at the narrowest part, and harangued the opposite camp. Lepidus imperturbably waited a while and then ordered the trumpets to sound and drown the voice of Antonius.

  Laterensis reported that fraternising was going on and that he doubted the fidelity of the troops unless something was done. Lepidus thanked him again and said that he would mention him in despatches.

  At last, on the morning of the 29th, Antonius with a few soldiers forded the stream. The men in the camp at once tore down the palisades, cheered the oncomers, took Antonius up on their shoulders, and carried him to the tent of Lepidus. Lepidus was still in bed, but without waiting to dress he came out and embraced Antonius amid the plaudits of both armies.

  A few yards away Laterensis caused a diversion by stabbing himself in the heart.

  Next day Lepidus wrote to the Senate:

  My army, mutineers to a man, kept to its tradition of preserving the lives of fellow-citizens and the general peace, and, to tell you the truth, compelled me to come out in support of such a great host of Roman citizens in their claim to life and civil rights. I therefore pray you, conscript fathers, to drop all feuds, to consider the well-being of the State, and not to charge me with a crime because of the mercy shown by myself and my army at a crisis of civil discord.

  *

  The news shattered the hopes of the Senate. Pollio and Plancus could not now be relied on; but still the senators continued vaguely to hope, to dodge all outright issues, to abominate any mention of the tributum. Servilia by her pleas even warded off for a while the denunciation of Lepidus, her son-in-law, though he was an ally of the proscribed Antonius. She had had enough worries lately to keep her occupied. Porcia had to be watched; she had become melancholic, and once beat her head against the wall; at another time she had set the bed on fire.

  The news awoke Octavianus out of his nervous inaction. What was he to do? He would have to make some final choice or he would be lost. After some agonised hours he decided to make one more effort to use the conservatives, to join with Cicero, whose dreams of the perfectly harmonised State appealed to him strongly. He knew that as things stood his legions were untrustworthy, and he had only held them by continually increasing his promises. Only by attaining some high and definite rank would he be able to satisfy them now and to preserve his life. If he could do that, he might yet go on steering a middle course and contribute towards a balanced reconstruction of the State.

  He wrote to Cicero suggesting that he and Cicero should be elected consuls together; people would of course object that he was ludicrously young, but would not his youth be offset if he had Cicero as his colleague? Of course he was legally ineligible, but Cicero could surely obtain a dispensation. He would follow Cicero’s advice in everything.

  Cicero was tempted. He saw the difficulties besetting Rome and knew that Octavianus could not maintain his position without some such stroke — moreover, that if Octavianus obtained this concession, he would probably throw the full weight of his name into supporting the Senate. But he dreaded the accusation of personal ambition, and his tentative efforts to broach the scheme were coldly met. The Senate even objected to the huge donatives that Octavianus was promising, and wanted both to cut them and to limit them to the first two revolting legions.

  Antonius was busy reorganising his legions, filling them with the compact energy and purpose of the men he had led from Mutina.

  *

  Octavianus sent a soldier-deputation to Rome to demand the consulship for himself and a repeal of the proscription of Antonius. He saw now that his only hope was to go with the tide of the devoted soldiery; otherwise he would lose his legions, despite all his promises.

  The deputation, acting roughly, was dismissed sharply by the Senate, who now considered Cicero discredited and were determined not to pay the tributum to see a pack of soldiers enriched.

  Octavianus spent a night of despair, talking with Agrippa. In the morning he announced that he would march on Rome.

  The Senate in panic sent an embassy with agreement to pay the donatives. Then they succumbed even further. They would fulfil all the promises of Octavianus and would allow him to be elected consul without a personal canvass at Rome. But then came news that the African legion had arrived at Ostia, and this legion, with the soldiers recalled from Sardinia, was ordered to defend Rome. The offers already made to the legions of Octavianus were withdrawn.

  Those legions were now at a fever-heat of rage, roused to complete exasperation by this exhibition of double dealing. Eagerly at the orders of Octavianus they continued with the march on Rome. No sooner had they appeared before the walls than the defending troops declared for the Son of Caesar and opened the gates.

  Octavianus was master of Rome.

  On 19th August he was elected consul with his cousin Pedius. Pedius at once called a Comitia and passed a law repealing the Amnesty. A special court was appointed to try the murderers of Caesar and to condemn them if they failed to appear. The chief Caesarians shared out the privilege of taking over the accusations, for they wanted the fame of the act and the profit of gaining a portion of the condemned man’s estate.

  All the murderers were at once convicted for contumacy. News came that Cassius had besieged Dolabella in Laodicea, and Dolabella had committed suicide to escape capture.

  *

  Octavianus now left Rome and marched north again. As he marched, Pedius had the proscriptions of Antonius and Lepidus removed. Pollio and Plancus had gone over to the Caesarian side; and after what Octavianus had done, it was impossible for the quarrel between him and Antonius to continue. Also, Antonius had lost his animosity. He was entirely the mouthpiece of the soldiers’ vengeance and devotion, and he left Lepidus to arrange a conference. On a small island in a river near Bononia the conference was held.

  Antonius and Lepidus appeared on one bank, Octavianus on the other. A tent had been pitched on the island. The leaders advanced alone across the bridges, meeting on the island and passing hands over one another’s clothing to make sure that no daggers were concealed. Then they entered the tent.

  The three men constituted themselves as a Committee for Establishing Public Safety.

  The main politicians of the opposing party must be eliminated. More important, money must be raised. For that purpose it was necessary to proscribe and destroy a whole class, the class of the big landlords and financiers.

  As they talked, Octavianus shuddered with horror. He saw what was coming; he saw Italy deluged with blood and misery. Was there no meaning but personal needs and political conflict in such a horrible culmination? Surely it must somehow be an act of justice, of retr
ibution. Surely out of their agony and murder a new State would arise. Otherwise it was too cruel.

  He looked at Antonius and Lepidus. They also felt the strain of the decisions. Their eyes were bloodshot; their faces looked flushed and puffy in the dim underlight of the tent; their hands shook. He wondered if they were thinking as he thought, or did they merely feel repulsion from an act of calculated bloodshed? Then he saw in Antonius something more than that weakness of repulsion. There was something great, something that Octavianus felt to be infinitely greater than himself. What was it?

  He looked closer, dropping his lids. Then he saw it. It wasn’t merely the man Antonius. It was the enormous loyalty of the soldiers that he led, the spirit of Caesar. That was what the world needed, a spirit of faith and trust. A voice of power and love. And here the three leaders of that movement were calmly decreeing the spoliation and murder of a whole class.

  Let them die. It wasn’t merely that so much of their wealth was misbegotten; that the men had come to represent a system of peculation and oppression; for there was another side to their activities, the tradition of Roman service that Octavianus loved. Octavianus felt stirring a twilight sense of a new world, a world which would be the real fulfilment of that tradition, a world of constructive law for which Caesar had fought and died. Caesar indeed was not dead. He must not die. The cry of the people for justice and peace must be heard, even though it brought suffering and death and injustice into being before its hope became true.

  The landlord class had struck Caesar down. Now they were going to be wiped out.

  So be it.

  “Well then,” said Antonius in a steady, nonchalant voice, but grasping his wine-cup so tightly his knuckles showed white, “I give up that uncle of mine. Octavianus gives up Cicero. Lepidus gives up his brother.”

  He took a deep drink and held out the beaker to refill the cups.

  “Not for me,” said Octavianus in a thin voice. “That’s as much as my stomach will hold.”

  Antonius laughed, not unkindly. “You’ll get a stronger stomach yet, my young friend. You’ll have to, in this world of ours.”

  *

  The proletarians and the soldiers were afflicted with no doubts and questionings. They had known all along what they wanted, and at last they’d got it. The Divine Caesar had heard. The day of retribution was come. The murderers were condemned, interdicted from fire and water. A Providence ruled the world. The rich and the powerful were overthrown; their estates and money were seized; the golden times of communal plenty were returned. Blood was streaming to replenish the earth, blood that was the redemption of sin and an offering to fatten the ghost of the Saviour. The oppressors and the landlords were proscribed, criminals who could be killed on sight. The usurers were sucked dry for a change. The tables of the moneylenders were overturned in the temples.

  The people scanned joyously the lists of proscription. The scribes of the Treasury were ransacking records to find the names of men with large estates or incomes. Informers thronged about the offices. Money must be torn from the individual hoarder and flung into the coffers of the State, whence it would flow to subsidise the impoverished and the homeless. Huge crowds came daily to worship the altar in the Forum. Caesar had become the God of the Roman Empire.

  Caesar be praised.

  Now had come the day of retribution. Haughty senators, who had ruled as kings in the provinces of their appointment, scrambled into the coarse sackcloth or goats-hair shirts of slaves, dressed as muleteers or footmen, crawled into spidery roof-holes, desperately hid themselves among the rats under floorboards, or crouched in the stinking slave-latrines. They lay in deserted tombs, peeping out at thieves and stray lovers; they paddled in the sewers and listened to ominous scuttling sounds in the damp chill of filth. Some lay down and moaned on the floor, awaiting their slayers and refusing to stand up to be killed; and a few came out with dignified faces and unresisting hands to meet their slayers on the way.

  Their one hope was to reach the coast where they might bribe a trading-skipper or a fishing-crew. Sextus Pompeius, still at large — the half-pirate son of the great Pompeius — sent out boats to cruise up and down the coast and save survivors, and issued proclamations that promised those who sheltered a proscribed man double the informer’s reward. But only a handful reached the coast. Soldiers were scouring the roads, on the look-out for the disguised runaways; and when they caught one of them, they came proudly to Rome with his head on a pike to claim the reward and brag in the taverns. The people cheered the processions with the blood-matted heads, trying to guess whose hated face it was. The man who saw a late master or recognised someone whose client he had been became a hero, and everyone bought him drinks of congratulation, while he ranted and abused the dead.

  Some senators, true to the tradition of their blood, collected those of their friends and clients who remained faithful, barricaded the house, and fought to the death. They fought, and the crowd swept over them, trampling their faces into the mosaic floors where dainty bridals were depicted. A Samnite of eighty years, proscribed for his wealth, bade his slaves throw all the gold and valuables into the street, to cheat his executioners; then he set fire to his house, and consumed himself and all his furniture and objects of art.

  Now was come the day of retribution. Slaves who had been maltreated crept up behind their proscribed masters and stabbed them in the reins, and mutilated their dead bodies and bit at the flesh once so privileged. Wives gave information to the authorities and seduced the agents to make sure that the names of their husbands were written in the list of those to die. Some hid their husbands, and then jeeringly pointed out the place to the seekers. Sons took revenge for shortened pocket-money by betraying their fathers.

  But all were not so base. Many wives and slaves dared death to hide and smuggle out their lords. One slave dressed himself as his master and let the pursuers slay him to preserve the error. One wife kept her husband for weeks in the rafters over her bed, feeding him secretly lest the slaves should notice and betray. Others sought to find the Triumvirs and beseech them for mercy, offering concealed jewels or their bodies for ransom.

  Still in the streets threaded the processions with heads on pikes; and the altar of Caesar, glistening with stolen unguents, was kissed by raptured crowds.

  The loot was beyond counting. The spoils of the proud families that had gutted the world were now at the mercy of the proletarians and the common soldiers. In Rome vast collections were dumped, and every Italian town had its piles of confiscated goods. The scribes were weary with checking the accounts of estates and articles, the lists of valuable slaves, to be sold. Statues, rich pottery, vases, rare and beautiful fabrics, pictures, Eastern carpets, jewelry, cut crystals, gems, were cluttered in heaps. Tools, oxen, horses, wagons, mules from the farms were for sale in endless quantities. The desks of the proscribed were rifled for credit-notes to swell the Treasury.

  Auctions were begun at Rome and the other towns to dispose of this plunder. The Triumvirs, the agents, the officers, took their pick. Fulvia grabbed greedily. The soldiers bought cheaply luxurious objects for which they had no use. The goods were sold at incredibly low prices. But more and more flowed in. The Jews and the freedmen with a little capital were buying as fast as they could. The government was commandeering the large estates for distribution among the poorer citizens and the veterans.

  Only one man of the rich bankers at Rome was able to weather out the storm — Atticus, who had shrewdly aided Fulvia with loans in the dark days of the retreat from Mutina, when others of his class were squeezing her for payment in frill of all the properties she had been buying. Now Antonius refused to let him be touched.

  The landlord class had killed Caesar to preserve their advantages and what they felt to be their dues. Now they had the retort.

  *

  Cicero was not caught at Rome. He was staying at his brother’s Tusculan villa. They fled and reached Astura, where Cicero had a small summer-house on an islet off Antium. The
y meant to sail thence to Macedonia. Quintus Cicero and his son, the lad who had been thrown out of the house of Antonius, turned back for some money and were slain, fighting bravely. Cicero escaped in a boat, but, falling into extreme sickness, insisted on being set ashore at Formiae, where he had another villa. He rested awhile; but news came of approaching soldiers. His servants warned him; but darkness had hemmed his mind in.

  “Leave me to die,” he protested brokenly, striving to preserve to the last his illusions, “in the fatherland that I have so often saved.”

  The slaves bore him into the litter and hurried off seawards. Cicero groaned in the litter’s curtained dusk. Every sanction of civilisation was trodden underfoot. Why should he live? His work was all to no end. Where was the harmonised State in which each man found and carried out his proper work, and at the top stood the man whose service was dedicated power? His life unrolled before him, its triumphs political and social and literary: a full life, and yet he had achieved nothing. This was the end of it all. He thought of the loving slaves who were endeavouring to save him. There was worth in the world of men, but it was ruined by the encroaching spot of blackness — that pulse of fear that worked in everyone, a shrouded memory of intolerable pain. Was that the hell of which the Mysteries spoke? That darkness closing in upon the individual mind, closing in over the world, the wings of a sinister bird of prey, the mad spot that no one could locate. Hell was real, the unknown madness in everyone. He had seen it in the riotous Clodius; and now he was forced to face it in himself, his failure, that unreasonable cry of pain, that bitter dissatisfaction and loss.

  O close the curtain forever. Pull down the darkness. Pull down the roof of the world and give me peace in the universal death.

  Cries of pain from the past. He had seen so much cruelty; he had himself caused so much, though he had always striven for the right. There was justice in suffering. No one suffered unjustly.