by David Blixt
BRUTUS
Is that how you see the Senate?
CAESAR
(laughing) I’ve been a member too long to see it as anything other than what it is - a collection of privileged fools who do nothing and obstruct everything. They’ll fight even the most basic, clearheaded notion because it was suggested by their political enemy. As if we were not all Romans! Picking absurd fights to protect some petty private interests, backing so deep into a political corner that my only viable solution is military. Lawmakers with a profound disdain for the law. That is how I see the Senate. Whereas you see it as you wish it to be - a just and wise body of men.
BRUTUS
The dreamer.
CAESAR
And the pragmatist.
BRUTUS
Like Sulla. Who waged war on Roma.
CAESAR
Not Roma. Sulla never warred against the people of Rome, only the Senate. And after the war he had himself made dictator to ensure there could never again be such strife.
BRUTUS
See how well that went.
CAESAR
A hit. Is this what’s on your mind? After five years, you choose tonight to speak of the Rubicon?
BRUTUS
Perhaps I finally see that a river can’t be uncrossed.
The SERVANT enters.
SERVANT
Forgive me, Caius Julius, Marcus Junius. The rain…
He gestures to the windows. CAESAR waves a hand, and the SERVANT begins closing the window shutters. The rain is still audible. BRUTUS is silent. CAESAR returns to his pile of papers and picks up a sealed letter.
CAESAR
I have a note here from Pompey’s son Sextus. Any interest?
BRUTUS
A keen interest. He’s due a session in my court.
CAESAR tosses the letter to BRUTUS, along with a golden letter-opener.
CAESAR
No need to tell me what it says. He’s refusing my offer of a pardon.
BRUTUS
A rare exception. Caesar’s clemency is famous. I should know - you pardoned me.
CAESAR
Nothing to pardon.
BRUTUS
(opening the letter and scanning it) He uses some very salty language - well, he’s a natural sailor - but the gist is you can stick your pardon in, ah, a fundamental orifice.
CAESAR
Quite. His father’s son.
SERVANT
Oh, Marcus Junius? Your brother Caius Cassius asked me to give you this note.
BRUTUS lays down the letter and hastily takes the note, tucking it away.
BRUTUS
Tell him I know what he wants, and he’ll have my answer tonight.
The SERVANT bows and exits.
CAESAR
You do well not to talk in front of slaves. Pitchers have ears. So - the Rubicon. What’s set that gnat whirring tonight of all nights?
BRUTUS
(turning the golden letter-opener over in his hands) It’s a gnat that pesters every patriotic man.
CAESAR
Painting me as unpatriotic. (BRUTUS opens his mouth) No, for Jupiter’s sake, don’t soften it! I’ve been called far worse.
BRUTUS
It’s on my mind because - I’ve been approached…
CAESAR
A petition?
BRUTUS
(seizing on the idea) Yes. In my court.
CAESAR
A good one, I hope. It’s been too long since we had a sensational murder trial. Who is the accused?
BRUTUS
A group of men, businessmen, but honorable, who’ve had their company usurped by one of the older shareholders.
CAESAR
And doubtless the dead man is the usurper. What business are they in?
BRUTUS
Armaments.
CAESAR
Hmph. I probably know them. No, no names, please. Don’t want to be accused of tampering with the courts. There are enough complaints against me already. Who brings the suit?
BRUTUS
The company’s workers. They were devoted to him.
CAESAR
Do they have standing?
BRUTUS
None better.
CAESAR
I see. Have the accused offered any defense?
BRUTUS
They were trying to save the company from ruin.
CAESAR
By murder? They couldn’t vote the man out?
BRUTUS
The workers wouldn’t allow it. But the company was failing.
CAESAR
A defense of justification, to cover their own weakness. But the case does raise an interesting question: was the company more important than the man’s life?
BRUTUS
And your answer is?
CAESAR
No man is indispensable. On the other hand, murder is still murder.
BRUTUS
If you were hearing the case, what would you do?
CAESAR
Let them off, but make them sell their shares in the company. Even if their cause was just, they can’t be allowed to profit from their deed.
BRUTUS
So they were justified?
CAESAR
Did I say that? Still, when the pot is broken, all that’s left is picking up the pieces. (arching an eyebrow) Do I sense a parallel? A parable, even?
BRUTUS
You wouldn’t have them killed?
CAESAR
Executing citizens is un-Roman. Freedmen and slaves, yes, if necessary. But I have never advocated death for anyone. You know that.
BRUTUS
I do. You should add another name. Caius Julius Caesar Clemens. That what makes it all more… The chief defendant is the man’s son.
CAESAR
Patricide?
BRUTUS
Adopted son. But still, he loved his father.
CAESAR
Yet, for the good of the whole, he slew him. Admirable.
BRUTUS
Abominable! Mouthing words of love, then raising a hand…
CAESAR
Why not? A man may simultaneously love his country and attack it. Case in point - the Rubicon.
BRUTUS
What? No, that doesn’t answer. Caesar, you can’t declare war on your own country and simultaneously cloak yourself in patriotism.
CAESAR
(grinning) Who says I can’t?
BRUTUS
Caesar, it is impossible to simultaneously love your country and attack it. It’s like those wretched men who beat their wives and claim they do it out of love.
CAESAR
Not only unpatriotic, but on the level of a wife-beater. You’re sweating, Brutus. Is it too warm?
BRUTUS
(setting aside the letter-opener) You’re telling me it’s possible to love a thing and fight against it?
CAESAR
Not only is it possible, it’s likely. A poetent emotion, love - it leads to violent upheavals. But I think you’re misstating the situation. Like Sulla, I never declared war against Rome. Only the Senate. The Senate is not Rome.
BRUTUS
Senatus Populesque Romanus.
CAESAR
Yes. The Senate and People of Rome. The people greeted me with flowers. (beat. Then, with mocking formality) Marcus Junius Brutus, as Urban Praetor I appeal to you--
BRUTUS
Please, don’t.
CAESAR
I’m quite serious. You’re thinking about petitions. Hear mine, and as Rome’s Chief Justice, you can decide - patriot, or villain?
BRUTUS
This is neither the time, nor the place…
CAESAR
I’m the dictator. Humor me.
With a frown, BRUTUS subsides.
CAESAR
Learned Urban Praetor, my case is thus: as governor of Italian Gaul, I signed treaties with the German and Gallic tribes across our border, making them Friends and Allies of the Roman people. Pe
rfectly legal and correct. One of these allies was attacked by a neighbor, and I went to mediate their dispute--
BRUTUS
With your army.
CAESAR
With Rome’s army. Then, having settled them down, I decided it was high time the Gallic people to the West should have treaties as well. So I crossed the border into Gallia Comata.
BRUTUS
Again, with your army. Only this time without any legal pretext.
CAESAR
But a great deal of precedent. Many Roman governors have taken their armies when meeting new people. We were peaceful - paid for everything, shed no blood. How was I to know that the Gauls would rise up? And that, when beaten, they would urge other Gallic nations to unite against Rome?
BRUTUS
So a one-year governorship became a ten-year war.
CAESAR
Which Caesar won.
BRUTUS
Which Rome won.
CAESAR
No. Caesar. (beat) But when the war was over, was I welcomed by the Senate? Was I allowed to enter the city of my birth and receive the acclaim due me? No. Rather your uncle Cato and his unlikely ally Pompey, along with a handful of petty, backward-looking self-immolating fanatics decided to bring me up on charges - treaty-breaking, launching illegal wars, creating new citizens among the Gauls.
BRUTUS
All of which charges you could have answered in court.
CAESAR
With juries composed of senators. I stood no chance. What would you have had me do, Urban Praetor? Submit to trumped up charges? Given up my name, my property? Sacrificed that thing I prize above all else?
BRUTUS
You could have kept your citizenship.
CAESAR
At the price of my dignity.
BRUTUS
That’s where you lose the argument, Caesar. You hold your dignity above the honor of being a Roman.
CAESAR
Being a Roman, I hold my dignity at the exact level of Rome’s. Brutus, I am Rome. You are Rome. Cassius, Antony, Lepidus - they’re all Rome. Pompey, Cato, Bibulus - they were Rome. Not just Romans. They were Roma herself . It isn’t-it isn’t enough to strive and achieve for personal gain or for family. You must add something to the ever-rising monument to Roma’s greatness. If , after conquering all of Gaul, I had allowed myself to be sent into exile, it would not only have diminished me. It would have diminished Rome.
BRUTUS
You are a wonderful advocate, Caesar. But there is a flaw in your argument. You pretend an ignorance that’s beyond you.
CAESAR
I beg your--
BRUTUS
‘How was I to know the Gauls would rise?’ You’re the greatest military and political mind in the world. Do you expect anyone to believe you didn’t know exactly what you were doing?
CAESAR
You admit I stayed within the law.
BRUTUS
If you admit you knew the consequences of your actions.
CAESAR
(smiling slightly) Suspected, perhaps. But, Brutus, I was scrupulously proper, within the letter of the law--
BRUTUS
Pardon me, Caesar--
CAESAR
Anything.
BRUTUS
Legal semantics cannot undo your deeds.
CAESAR
If they could, Brutus, I would surround myself with lawyers. In all my life, I’ve wanted nothing more than to be legal.
BRUTUS
Perfect, you mean.
CAESAR
I do not regard myself as perfect.
BRUTUS
I didn’t say you thought you were perfect. I said you want to be. And you won’t tolerate anyone around you to be less than perfect themselves. You’d cast aside your own son, if you had one. (quickly) Forgive me, Caesar.
CAESAR
Don’t shy off! One of the problems with being dictator is that no one speaks his mind. Licker-fish and ass-spongers all. They say only what they think I want to hear. What man wants that?
BRUTUS
Now who’s dreaming? That’s the desire of men throughout history - to be perpetually correct in everything they say and do.
CAESAR
Well, I’ve lost that race, haven’t I?
BRUTUS looks at CAESAR curiously, then crosses to the map.
BRUTUS
Once you’ve beaten the Parthians, Caesar, will you weep?
CAESAR
What?
BRUTUS
‘When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.’
CAESAR
There is more in me than the conqueror, Brutus.
BRUTUS
Then show it. Step down, and be virtuous.
CAESAR
Virtuous?
BRUTUS
Virtue alone is sufficient for a happy life. A virtuous man cannot be harmed by poverty, illness, war, or exile. Endurance is a virtue.
CAESAR
But passivity is not. To passively endure things is a woman’s lot, not a man’s. A man must fight injustice, don’t you agree?
BRUTUS
But how far must a man go? That’s what I’m struggling with. And how to go about it? Is it right to battle injustice with injustice?
CAESAR
You have my answer.
BRUTUS
Yes. To you, injustice justifies any act. Even treason. Even murder.
CAESAR
I regret it, but yes.
BRUTUS
You have regrets? I thought you were impervious to them.
CAESAR
Hardly. (beat) You know, in a way the Rubicon was my greatest defeat. In that moment, I lost something. I felt it go, like a broken thing inside me.
BRUTUS
What was it?
CAESAR
A dream. My dream. Of being the greatest Roman of all time.
BRUTUS
You think you’re not?
CAESAR
Not the way I wanted. Until that moment, I had done everything properly. Served in the right number of campaigns, held every office in the proper year. I wanted to be consul a second time, then censor, then become an elder statesman, possibly even Leader of the Senate. ‘Primus inter pares.’ The first among equals.
BRUTUS
Instead you are a god in Ephasus, a king in Aegypt, and Dictator of Rome. Undisputed ruler of the world. It’s not enough?
CAESAR
Far too much… (shaking off his grim thoughts). I should thank Lepidus. This is the best dinner conversation I’ve had in years.
BRUTUS
Something you said-- It reminds me of the story of Caius Popillius Laenas.
CAESAR
Because he faced down the King of Syria alone, with no more than a stick in the sand? Whereas I brought my army with me.
BRUTUS
I didn’t mean it as a slight. I was thinking of what Laenas told the king. (BRUTUS begins acting out the story, placing CAESAR in the role of the king) Using a stick, he drew a circle around the king, then said, ‘Before you step out of that circle give me a reply to lay before the senate.’
‘Where is your army?’ demanded the king.
‘I don’t need an army,’ answered Laenas. ‘Everything that Rome is, ever has been, and ever will be, is standing before you now. I am Rome’s army. I am Rome’s might. I am Rome.’
CAESAR
And the king turned around and headed back to Syria. Yes, Brutus, exactly. Laenas had a sense of himself in Rome’s pageant. So do I.
BRUTUS
Is that the lesson you take?
CAESAR
What else?
BRUTUS
It astonishes me.
CAESAR
What?
BRUTUS
Your act as if you know how history will judge you. But what seems right in the moment often turns out to be wrong. How do you make the irrevocable choice? How - how do you cross
that river?
CAESAR
I think of what a true Roman would do. Laenas. The two Scipios, Marius. Yes, even Sulla. What Brutus would do. What Romulus would do. In the case of the Rubicon, the answer was plain. Remus mocked the humble walls Romulus had built, so Romulus slew him. His own brother.
BRUTUS
How does that answer? Remus died for doing precisely what you did - he broke the sacred boundary of Rome.
CAESAR
No. Remus died for diminishing Roma.
BRUTUS
Remus broke Rome’s law. So did you. What is Rome without law?
CAESAR
Whose law? I ask you, Brutus, whose law? Under the law, all Roman citizens are equal, from the noblest to the meanest, from Brutus to the poorest of the Head Count. But I was not to be afforded that inalienable right. Inalienable, Brutus. What they gave to Pompey, they refused to me. Your uncle Cato and the rest held one set of laws for those in their good graces, and another for the men they disdained. And why did I earn their disdain? What was my real crime? Excellence. Great men are no longer allowed to exist, they must be torn down. In their Rome there is no room for superior men. Mediocrity rules. Anyone who dares show himself brilliant, ambitious, and able is not to be tolerated. If they cannot beat him within the rules, well, it must be time to change the rules! That is injustice, plain and simple.
BRUTUS
What you say is true, and rational - and wrong! You broke the law. Damn the circumstances, you broke the law!
CAESAR
It was already broken by other men.
BRUTUS
‘They made me do it?’ Another fallacy, Caesar. Two wrongs do not make a right. Besides, who has ever made you do anything you didn’t want to?
CAESAR
Are you saying I wanted to cross the Rubicon?
BRUTUS
I’m saying a man is not defined by his enemies, but his actions. Caesar is far too much his own man to allow himself to be defined any other way.
CAESAR
I take responsibility for my actions. But I also acknowledge the circumstance. Morality in a vacuum is hollow philosophy.
BRUTUS
Being a dreamer, I have to disagree. Morality is like the law - if it changes in different circumstances, it’s not worth having.
CAESAR
My point exactly. If the law-makers break their own laws, what’s an honorable citizen to do?
BRUTUS
Wage civil war, obviously.
CAESAR
A very civil civil war. What blood did I shed on Italian soil? None. No, Brutus, what I did was a Right Act. Zeno would see that, even if Cato did not. I chose to honor the idea of Roma when her laws had gone astray.