Caesar i-3

by Allan Massie

  That advice was typical of Antony: vigorous, flattering to Caesar, and thoughtless. I looked round the table and noticed several heads nod in agreement. They weren't heads I would have trusted to plan an excursion to the country.

  Caesar gave no sign whether he approved this plan or not.

  Caius Cassius, a recent adherent to our party (he had fought in the Pompeian army at Pharsalus) looked grave. Some may have been surprised that he had been invited to attend this council, but it was Caesar's policy to bind reconciled enemies as tightly as possible to his cause and person. Now Cassius spoke, anxious, as was natural enough, to make an impression.

  "I have no doubt that my friend Antony has considered the matter carefully," he said. "He knows these legions, and may have judged wisely. Yet it occurs to me that he may have overlooked what I would call the political aspect. There is reason to believe, is there not, that this mutiny has been fomented by agitators?"

  "For myself, I detect the hand of Labienus," Caesar said.

  "Thank you, Caesar. I am grateful to have my suspicions confirmed. Now what do I mean by the political aspect? Simply this: if we march out against them, Caesar's enemies will take heart. They will say that his legions are divided against each other. They will say his party is split. They will therefore attract new adherents."

  "Bugger new adherents," Casca said. "I'll tell you something more dangerous still. If we march against them, they won't stand their ground, but they won't surrender either. Antony is right in saying they won't dare to face you in person, Caesar. But they will withdraw in good order, they're soldiers dammit, whom we have trained. We know what manner of men they are. We know their pride. And what then? They will believe that their cause can only be saved — their lives even — if they retire and ally themselves to our enemies. It's too great a risk, Caesar."

  "So what should we do, Casca, if you reject our dear Antony's proposal?"

  "Buggered if I know," Casca said.

  "Well, Mouse?" Caesar turned to me. "Have you words of wisdom to offer?"

  "I should hesitate to call my opinion wisdom, but it seems to me that you should do nothing which might suggest to them that you recognise that they are not under your orders."

  "By Hercules," Antony shouted, "what sort of nonsense is this? They've mutinied, Mouse, in case you haven't noticed. That means that they have defied orders, rejected orders. Or don't you know what the word 'mutiny' means?"

  "Oh yes," I said, "I think I do. And if you will allow me to repeat what I said, and this time listen carefully, Antony, I suggested that Caesar should not act in such a manner as to let the mutineers believe that he recognises that they are not under his orders. I mean by that, Caesar, that you take the initiative, not by confronting them, but by issuing the sort of order which they will find quite easy to obey…"

  "I'm still lost," Antony said.

  "Never mind, dear," Casca said. "Mouse is right, Caesar."

  I have recounted this conversation in some detail because in the subsequent report which Caesar gave to the Senate, he allowed it to be understood that the plan by which the mutiny was quelled originated with him. I owe it to my dignity to draw the attention of posterity to my part in its defeat. Indeed, though I don't deny that Caesar delivered the final masterstroke, everyone who attended that council knows very well that the grand design was my work.

  So word was sent to the mutineers that they could enter the city, and camp in the Field of Mars, so long as they first laid down their arms. (The gates of the city were of course well-guarded by loyal troops.) They obeyed this instruction to the extent that I had thought probable; that is to say, they carried only their swords with them. That terrified the citizens — no bad thing in itself, I thought.

  Caesar was angry when I collected him from his house. Fortunately, his anger was controlled. He explained to me that he was revolted by the disloyalty, self-will and stupidity of the men.

  "We have been through so much together," he said. "We are part of the same body. Don't they understand that, if they are to command and I am to fall in with their wishes, the whole nature of the bond between us will be tarnished, even destroyed? I have no patience with their greed and insolence."

  "Very well, Caesar," I said, "but when you address them, be cold, not warm."

  "I shall be cold as a night in the mountains of Helvetia," he replied.

  We arrived in the Field of Mars and made our way to the dais which had been erected. Caesar took his seat. For a few minutes he paid no attention to the men swarming beneath us, but spoke only to me and a few others around him. I took stock of the situation. Now that my plan was approaching fruition, I felt nervous for the first time. It was after all possible that it would not work, and in that case things could turn very nasty indeed. There might even be a general massacre.

  When Caesar at last lifted his head, looked at the troops and spoke, his voice was bored. He asked to hear their complaints. He spoke as if he had never previously seen these men with whom he had fought throughout Gaul and at Pharsalus. It was,

  I must confess, a marvellous piece of theatre: and it disconcerted them.

  Nevertheless, after a pause, while they waited to see who would have the courage to speak first, the complaints came fast and thick. Speech tumbled over speech as they told of their wounds, their hardships, what they had suffered in his cause, the great deeds they had accomplished, the friends they had lost, the rewards they had expected and been denied, their desire to be demobilised.

  The speeches went on too long. The mood was growing more restive. Still Caesar gave no sign that he had heard.

  Someone shouted: "We've torn our guts out for you, Caesar."

  One legionary pushed forward, clambered halfway up the platform before he was stopped. He tore a patch off his left eye, revealing a horrid vacancy.

  "I lost this at Alesia, and still they wouldn't give me my discharge. What do you say to that, Caesar?"

  Caesar looked up. He raised a hand. There was silence.

  "Very well," his voice seemed unconcerned, an actor's voice. "I have understood what you want. You can all be demobilised immediately. Leave your swords with the guards as you disperse. As for money, you all know Caesar. You can rely on me for every penny you are due and every penny you have been promised. Give your names and the amount you claim to the quartermaster. You'll have to wait, though, till I return from Africa to get settlement in full. I'd counted on you for that campaign. Now it'll have to be fought with other legions. They'll be the ones which will take part in my Triumph when I return. I think that's everything."

  Nobody broke the silence. They were utterly taken aback. Either they hadn't expected this easy agreement, or they were disappointed by it. The ringleaders of course had been cheated of the fight they had been paid to foment, but that wasn't the main cause of the strange change of mood. No, it was, first, that reminder of the Triumph he was due, and the realisation that they would have no share in it, even though so many of them were veterans of the battles which had secured the honour for their General. And yet there was, I realised, a still more bitter thought: their discovery that Caesar believed he could do perfectly well without them.

  So nobody moved or uttered a word. It was like a funeral before the lamentation begins.

  "Citizens," Caesar said, and was rewarded by a howl of pain and grief. He had never addressed them as anything but "soldiers" or "comrades", and now he was calling them "citizens" as if they were no more important than voters whose support he might be trying to elicit.

  They broke ranks, crowding round him, tugging at his sleeve, begging him to forgive them, take them back into his service, punish the ringleaders who had led them so grievously astray. It was a ludicrous scene; grizzled veterans were sobbing like women. One centurion of the Tenth even shouted, "Punish us, Caesar, punish us as you think fit, decimate us even, so long as you take the rest of us back and let us accompany you to Africa."

  At dinner that evening Caesar glowed with pride. He talk
ed at length about the art of controlling men.

  "Touch their pride and they are yours," he said.

  He seemed to forget that it was as a result of my advice that the day had turned out so satisfactorily. I didn't hold that against him, of course. My task was to advise, his to execute. Nevertheless it would have been more gracious if he had acknowledged the debt he owed me.

  CHAPTER 6

  I was not disappointed when Caesar informed me that he would not require me to accompany him to Africa, though it was naturally irritating to learn that many were muttering that I had fallen out of the Dictator's favour. That wasn't, of course, the case. Caesar made it clear that he was expecting me to supervise his political interests at home.

  "I would rather have those whom I don't trust with me, under my eye, and leave behind those whom I trust absolutely," he said.

  I acquiesced proudly, though I extracted from him the promise that I should rejoin the army as soon as he felt my services were not absolutely necessary in Rome. After all, I am a soldier first and foremost, and no old warhorse is happy to be out of hearing of the trumpet.

  Apart altogether from my public duties, I had other reasons for being content to remain in the city. My knee was still troubling me, and the Greek doctor whom I consulted advised that prolonged rest and regular anointing with a compound of almonds and crocodile oil would be the best treatment.

  "If you don't give it time to recover, my lord, you will be a hopeless cripple in ten years," he warned.

  Then my father's health was declining, and it was natural that I should wish to attend his deathbed. We had never been close, for he was a man of old-fashioned rigour and considerable stupidity, who had never understood my more audacious flights or had any sympathy with my eagerness to taste life to the full. But I honoured him and was satisfied that I had never failed in my duty towards him. My mother too was pleased to have me at home, finding my presence a great comfort, as my poor father grew ever more capricious and absurdly demanding. Indeed it was fortunate that I was there, since I was able to thwart a scheme he had devised to leave almost half of his property to "the common good of the Roman people". The deluded old man believed that this would secure him the fame which he had not achieved in life — as if this could possibly matter to him when he was dead, while it would have been a serious inconvenience to us (or so it seemed then, Artixes) to be deprived of our rightful inheritance.

  Finally, Clodia having departed into the dark chamber of her own death-journey, I was agreeably engaged in an affair with a young Phrygian dancer, a creature of unquenchable gaiety and acrobatic inventiveness in the art of love. I would certainly have been loth to leave Rome before I had exhausted this young person's considerable charms, which seemed to me to combine the ardour of Clodius with the seductive sluttishness of Cleopatra.

  So it was with equanimity that I said "Farewell" to Caesar, and it was in truth a relief to be free of his overpowering and demanding presence.

  Rather to my surprise I found myself being cultivated by Cicero. I have mentioned him several times in this memoir, Artixes, and generally, I think, disparagingly. Well, there was good reason for that, but it occurs to me that I may have conveyed an inadequate impression of this remarkable man. For he was remarkable: one of the few men in Rome to have achieved the highest position in the State without the advantage of either birth or great wealth (though he acquired the latter, of course).

  He was now, I suppose, about sixty. (I have, of course, no works of reference to hand and must rely on my memory and my impressions.) His great days were behind him. It was almost twenty years since he had had his finest hour, when, as consul, he exposed and destroyed Catiline's conspiracy. He had bored everyone ever since with his accounts of how he had saved the State. It was indeed one of those triumphs which had ill consequences for their author. Cicero had put Roman citizens to death without trial, and this crime pursued him all the rest of his days. That was what his enemies — and his sharp tongue had won him many — recalled when he boasted of his achievement. It had won him the fierce enmity of my adored Clodius, and so, as a young man, I never heard good of Cicero. But I have already recounted what Clodia said about the man who defended the murderer of her brother and our lover.

  Nevertheless no one has ever denied Cicero's intellect, and few his charm. When he set himself to please, he usually succeeded. Even Caesar, who distrusted him on account of his vanity and indecision, delighted in his company. And I confess that, despite all that I knew and all that lay horridly between us, I was flattered to be invited to his dinner-table.

  He alternated that spring between excitement and depression. He knew that he had blundered at the commencement of the civil wars when, as a result of his vanity and poor judgment, he had attached himself to Pompey and the conservatives in the Senate.

  "I risked life and property for their cause," he said, "and yet, you know, I was never appreciated by them. I was excluded from Pompey's council, though I had greater and deeper experience than any who surrounded him. Of course Pompey was ever easily influenced. All the same you would not have thought he could be such a fool as to ignore the value of my advice. But there it is. He was a great man, but limited. He was always conscious of his intellectual inferiority to me, and, I suppose, also to Caesar."

  He often spoke in this vein. It was clear, too, that he still believed he had a political future. I could have disillusioned him, but it seemed more polite, and perhaps more useful, to listen to his speculations.

  "Caesar has achieved much," he said. "The question is what does he intend to do with the power he has accumulated. I realise naturally that this matter cannot be resolved till these wretched wars have been brought to a successful conclusion. But that can't be long now. I have a great respect for Cato, but" — he poured wine and sniggered — "only someone with as little self-knowledge as that dear man could suppose him to be a match for Caesar on the field of battle. So Cato will lose in Africa, and then Caesar will turn on Gnaeus Pompey, who, between you and me, my dear, is little more than a brigand, and drive him out of his Spanish fastness, and then… and then, where shall we be?"

  "Who can tell?" I said, knowing I was not supposed to supply an answer.

  "The first essential is that the Republic should be reconstituted. I am sure Caesar understands this, aren't you? After all, what else can he do? Rome will not tolerate a Perpetual Dictator, the government of a single person. I realise that he may wish to be granted the dictatorship for an indefinite period, that's natural enough, but equally, it must be largely an honorific, at most supervisory, title. If we are to have the government of a single person, what should we call him? A king? We Romans will never tolerate monarchy. Caesar would have to be mad to suppose we might. And one thing we all know about Caesar is that he is not mad. Or is he, young Brutus?"

  "You have already answered that question, sir," I replied.

  "Quite so. But we must consider that these terrible wars have deprived us of many able men, and torn the heart out of many noble families. The list of the illustrious dead is long and melancholy. Moreover discord, resentment, and the desire for revenge govern many of their heirs. How are the parties to be reconciled? Where shall we find the means of establishing a new concord of the different orders in the State? How shall we reconcile the demands of the victorious soldiery with the rights of landed proprietors? What steps are necessary to re-establish the authority of the consuls? How do we govern this great Empire which we have won? These are all matters which will perplex us during the period of arduous reconstruction which must follow the end of the wars. You, Decimus Brutus, are deservedly deep in Caesar's confidence. What does he plan? How does he propose to. set about this reconstruction? For my part, I cannot see how it can be achieved unless he is prepared to surrender power and authority back to those bodies which properly exercise them. You cannot, it seems to me, perpetuate a system evolved to answer a crisis when that crisis has itself disappeared."

  "No doubt Caesar has given con
sideration to these matters," I said. "They are what must be discussed. I do not think I am at liberty to expatiate further."

  The position was delicate, you see. The questions Cicero raised were proper and must indeed have occurred to anyone who had reflected on the situation. I knew, however, that Caesar shied away from exploring them. He preferred always to act according to the promptings of instinct. He was fond of remarking that "Decisions are best made when they force themselves upon you; that is, when the hour is ripe."

  But it would have been impolitic to hint in this gathering that we (Caesar's friends, that is) had really no idea of how the Constitution should be reformed post-bellum.

  "The question surely is whether, or to what extent, something which has been shattered can ever be repaired?"

  The speaker was scarcely more than a boy, an adolescent, whose chin seemed innocent of the razor. He was slight, but compactly made. He had clear grey eyes, sweetly curving lips, and light hair which flopped over his left eye. He spoke in a cool voice, and did not look at the company but seemed to be examining his finely formed and shapely arm which rested on the back of the couch on which he lay. I had arrived late that evening, having been detained on a matter of urgent business, and had not been introduced to him; Cicero, like many egotists, was often careless in his observation of elementary good manners. The boy had looked at me two or three times in the course of our supper, through long eyelashes, smiling as if he knew me and we had an understanding denied to the others present. I wondered who he was, and found myself interested.

  Cicero was surprised by his interjection.

  "What do you mean?" he said.

  The boy hesitated. His tongue stroked his lower lip and he kept his eyes fixed on his arm (golden-brown, shadow-dappled, smooth as alabaster).

  "It's presumptuous of me, I know. I've so little experience. But if it was the demands of Empire which broke the traditional structure of the Republic, then I don't see how that can be restored, unless we were to abandon Empire, which is unthinkable."