by Craig Smith
The first order of business, according to Antony, was to establish a truce among all parties. No need for more bloodshed. Brutus protested at once; the first order of business, he said, was the restoration of the Republic. There would be no more tyrants or dictators or talk of kings in Rome.
Clearly he thought Antony aspired to replace Caesar. Antony answered him enthusiastically, ‘You are right of course. Unless by restoration you mean my consulship is illegitimate.’
‘That is exactly the case,’ Cassius answered.
‘Then I suppose I haven’t the authority to call the senate to session for the purpose of voting immunity to those involved in Caesar’s death?’
After a long, thoughtful pause Brutus asked, ‘You would do that?’
‘If I were still a consul I would. Of course, if you want to declare me illegitimate and arrange elections at once, I cannot help you. You want a Republic and that, I’m afraid, comes with courts and the right of Caesar’s family to bring the charge of murder against all of you.’
‘Caesar was a tyrant!’ Cassius answered.
‘Perhaps he was, but he was also a citizen. Under the laws of our Republic his family can make you answer for his death in court. You know how it goes: lost fortunes, exile…’ He gave a shiver. ‘Juries can get very testy about the murder of a man they once loved. But as you like. I’ll not worry about it. It’s your court date, not mine.’
The agreement that followed was the sort of sham only Mark Antony could have conjured, as worthless as a roll of wet papyrus in the long run but sufficient to keep the peace for the next few days.
Antony, in his role as consul, called the senate to session next morning before dawn and got a unanimous vote on a single measure, the details of which had been negotiated the night before. Antony’s and Dolabella’s consulships were confirmed. Lepidus received his pontificate. Caesar would have a funeral at public expense, and the assassins were all immune from civil and criminal prosecution. Should anyone care to protest the senate’s decision Lepidus stood ready to advance his legions into the city.
The city was still quiet when I arrived on the Camp of Mars. I left Hannibal and my pack mule at a stable and walked into the city with a hired slave pushing a rickety cart filled with my gear. This was the evening before Caesar’s funeral. Rather than seek out a public house or my family’s Tuscan friends, I went directly to the great house of the Cornelii, for I had promised Dolabella I would report to him before the third day after the Ides of March.
As soon as I had identified myself, Dolabella’s steward informed me that I would walk with Dolabella’s party next morning. This actually meant I would serve as part of Dolabella’s security force, though we didn’t use terms of that kind. A client walked with his patron as a show of respect. He might carry a gladius and dagger concealed beneath his toga and even a stout walking staff with a steel point on it, but it was not appropriate to appear in the city in military armour. Good friends in great numbers? Well, who is not envied his popularity?
I joined some fifty friends in a makeshift barracks inside Dolabella’s house. Not all the fellows were busy when I entered, but a great number of them were honing the blades of their weapons.
As a consul, now officially appointed by the senate to his office, Dolabella had an escort of lictors to accompany him in public; these men surrounded a standing consul as a mark of honour. They were sworn to protect the consul with their lives, but their numbers might not be sufficient against determined assassins. With another fifty friends close by, Dolabella would be far safer. My patron’s anxiety for his personal safety seemed out of all proportion to any danger I could imagine until I saw the mass of people gathered in the Forum next morning.
In the wake of Caesar’s assassination, the mob had stayed quiet, but that is not to say they were content. On the morning of Caesar’s funeral they filled the Forum, spreading across the steps of all the temples and crowding along the basilicas Julia and Aemilia to the north and south of the great plaza. Even the rooftops and alleyways surrounding the Forum were filled. Man or woman, it made no difference: wherever I looked, I saw a murderous scowl.
Caesar’s corpse had been set atop the speaker’s platform with only a solitary squad of lictors posted around his funeral litter. Directly behind him was the dreary old Temple of Saturn, black with the smoke of centuries. Behind it was the Capitoline, with Jupiter’s gleaming white temple pre-eminent at the top of the hill.
Caesar was propped up on one elbow in the traditional manner of the dead; the effect suggests a fellow reclining on his couch at a feast. He was wearing a senator’s toga with the broad purple stripe and holding a drinking cup. This is the Roman way of bidding our world farewell and certainly not the worst of our customs. Brave and careless, yet honouring the amenities of life, we leave the light of day.
Caesar’s co-consul, Mark Antony, delivered the funeral oration. He began his address with the usual tropes. He spoke of Caesar’s kindnesses to his friends and family. Eventually he turned to the matter of Caesar’s long and honoured service to Rome. I did not listen closely, for although Antony was a skilled speaker I soon found myself thinking about Caesar at my bedside: the touch of his hand on mine, his assurance that I was much needed.
A rumble in the crowd brought me out of my reflections. Once more I awakened to the terror of the mob. I could see nothing at first. Antony was quoting the oath that men had taken to serve Caesar: ‘…a sacred oath given freely before gods and men!’ Then he named the men who had taken that oath: Gaius Trebonius, Cassius Longinus, Junius Brutus...
He continued naming the assassins, and as he did he walked over to Caesar’s corpse. He pulled the toga away, exposing the stab wounds, more than twenty in all. ‘Look and see how these men kept their sacred promises.’ And touching the wounds, he cried again, ‘Look and weep, Romans!’
It was a call to battle, and the plebs answered with a roar.
Our captain called to us to get around Dolabella and take him up to the Capitoline, which was the closest fortification. He might as well have asked us to fly. We could not move. I could hear the plebs tearing into shops and looting goods. The Curia was soon put to fire. The old senate house was not the site of Caesar’s murder, but that fact bothered no one. The senate house was handy and had long symbolised everything the plebs hated about their overlords. Once it was ablaze, the pressure of the mob shifted.
With swords drawn we were able to evacuate along the Via Sacra up the Capitoline’s slopes and safely beyond the crush of the mob. As the road lifted us above the Forum I caught a glimpse of the melee from high ground. I could see both basilicas along the Forum’s perimeter had already been trashed and set on fire; here and there the bodies of senators and equites were already down. Those men who had been hemmed in by the crowd or were too witless to escape when they had the chance were presently pursued by gangs of plebs. It did not matter if a man belonged to the assassin’s league or Caesar’s; a purple stripe that morning was enough to mark a man as an enemy of Rome.
Looking down at the Forum from the porch of the Temple of Jupiter we watched the mob destroy everything within reach. Despite the chaos, neither Antony nor Dolabella appeared anxious to summon Lepidus. To be honest, I think the consuls rather enjoyed the fulsome slaughter.
When they had seen enough and finally sent for him, Lepidus stormed into the city with every man he had. By late afternoon, the fight was over. Next morning hundreds of corpses of men, women, and children littered the Forum and streets beyond; pleb thugs had fallen over murdered aristocracy. The corpses of children were stiff in the arms of their rigid mothers. The shops were charred from fire. And ten thousand legionaries stood at attention throughout the city, even as squads of cavalry patrolled the streets.
It was at this point that a great many of the senators decided it might be a good idea to spend a few weeks at their country villas. Those actually guilty of murdering Caesar applied to the consuls for permission to leave Italy altogether.
Rome: April, 44 BC
For the moment Mark Antony’s coalition ruled Rome, which is to say Antony ruled the world. Caesar’s enemies were on the run, and the plebs were certain Antony embraced their cause. Nor did he play the tyrant. He took all and sundry matters before either the senate or the people’s assembly. Nothing became law without a vote.
Nor was there any more murder of the aristocracy. Both Antony and Dolabella were happy to write passports for any of the assassins who asked the favour of them. At that late date, there were no senior positions to be had, but a minor office in some foreign city gave them the legal excuse to leave Italy.
As for the legions available to Antony and Dolabella, the two consuls made no personal use of them. Lepidus marched off to Gaul in a matter of days after Caesar’s funeral. The great army in western Macedonia remained in camp for the duration of the summer.
For the better part of my life I have wondered how fortune turned so quickly against Antony. Within a matter of weeks everything he had accomplished began to unravel. Did he not understand the dangers he faced? Was he overconfident of his popularity with the mob? Too certain of the loyalty of the legions?
Only in my old age has it come to me. Antony acted quite properly. He was not interested in becoming another Caesar. He only wanted to serve his term as consul and then retire to a prosperous provincial government, where he might amass a fortune that even he could not exhaust. It can never be said that Antony was politically inept or stupid. Quite the opposite: he proved himself a political genius in the aftermath of Caesar’s murder.
That he lost his power so quickly makes it seem as if he misjudged matters terribly or somehow let his success blind him to danger. There is some truth in both views, but a better assessment of the situation is that Julius Caesar came back from the dead. After that, no mortal could anticipate what might happen next.
V
A SULPHUROUS FOG
Rome, Macedonia, and Brindisi: April, 44 BC
Some days after the riots in Rome we awakened to find the city under a heavy fog. This was not the usual kind of moist air that forms around a river on a cold morning. Ashes drifted in the air and a vile sulphurous stench permeated everything. We thought it would pass with the first wind, but it stayed in Rome through the whole summer. It limited vision and burned the eyes. It wore on men’s nerves as it lingered and made everyone wonder if it would ever depart.
The plebs were quick to assume the gods had sent this fog as a punishment on Rome. This was of course pure nonsense. With the coming of Octavian, Rome was going to have all the punishment she could endure. The more thoughtful of the superstitious eventually decided that the fog served as a harbinger of his coming. Another view, and certainly a less romantic one, is that Mount Etna blew its top.
Caesar’s grandnephew had been in western Macedonia with the army when he learned of Caesar’s assassination. At the news, Octavian’s two closest friends, Marcus Agrippa and Cilnius Maecenas, advised him to return to Italy at once. His mother and stepfather sent a letter by courier to counsel delay; the city, they wrote, was unsafe. Octavian hesitated only until he learned of the riots at Caesar’s funeral. At that point he took courage and crossed the Adriatic and came to Brindisi, at the boot heel of Italy.
In Brindisi, still three hundred miles by road to Rome, there was more news. Caesar’s will had been read. Legacies and gifts aside, Caesar had named Octavian his sole heir. Caesar had also adopted Octavian as his son. Having no other heirs with whom to share Caesar’s fortune, Octavian quite suddenly became the richest boy in the world. Of course the law in those days was anything but clear on testamentary adoptions, but Caesar’s will provided Octavian enough justification to call himself by his adoptive father’s name, Gaius Julius Caesar.
Feted in Caesarean-friendly Brindisi as Caesar’s avenger, our new Caesar rode north along the Appian Way with veterans of the legions joining him as he went. Perhaps because of his popularity with the plebs, very few of the great families offered the lad hospitality. It is said that Marcus Tullius Cicero received him at his villa in the south, albeit without offering him either a bed or a meal. Octavian pretended not to notice the slight and laid out his plans to Cicero in clear and simple terms.
Cicero pretended to approve of Octavian’s ambitions and sent him on to Rome with much encouragement. Of course Cicero expected Antony to dismember the young fool in short order, and Cicero was almost never wrong in his assessment of things political. But, like everyone else, he was wrong about our boy Octavian, badly wrong.
In Cicero’s defence, no thinking person could imagine Octavian was up to the challenges of political and military leadership. Only passion could stir men to support such an unlikely hero, but it was not a time for clear thinking. The plebs wanted revenge for Caesar’s murder and backed the only man who promised it.
Rome: 5th May, 44 BC
Octavian’s veteran legionaries settled on the Camp of Mars one morning in early May. They made no show of force against the city; they did not have armour, just swords and knives for personal protection. Armoured or not, their presence won Octavian a meeting with Rome’s consuls, Mark Antony and Cornelius Dolabella. Octavian had declared in advance of the meeting he desired two things: the assassins of his father brought to justice and the inheritance Caesar’s will had promised. Having nothing to give the lad, Antony and Dolabella might have hesitated granting a meeting, but Antony insisted on bravado. ‘Best to put the lad in his place,’ he declared. ‘If he returns to his army empty-handed, the men will lose their enthusiasm for him. No soldier adores a man who proves too tender for the fight.’ It was sound advice then and seems so even now. Certainly delay in granting a meeting or a pointed refusal to talk with him could only stir up trouble with the veterans.
There was no plan to assassinate him. For one thing, he wasn’t worth the trouble. The subject did come up for discussion but only as one discusses killing a pestering fly. Whether Octavian feared the event or only thought to be prudent I cannot say, but he demanded hostages from Antony and Dolabella and offered his sister and mother and several of his family in exchange. All parties agreed to an honour guard of friends to stand in attendance; these men were to keep their daggers politely concealed. For his escort Octavian brought Marcus Agrippa and a handful of young thugs loyal to Agrippa. Cilnius Maecenas also stood with Octavian, though I seriously doubt he bothered to conceal any kind of weapon. Maecenas had a fine talent for political intrigue even in those early days, but no one ever accused him of military accomplishment. In a fight, Maecenas was always the fellow hiding behind the largest column, right next to Octavian.
I stood with a dozen other men at Dolabella’s back. Antony surrounded himself with family and a few of his favourite pleb drinking companions, all good men in a brawl. In addition to the principal parties and their escorts, several senators were present to witness the event. We met at Caesar’s former house, the Regia. The atrium was barely large enough to accommodate our number; in all there were some fifty men standing about. But a public building would not do; it was essential to avoid any appearance of conducting a formal meeting. This was a matter to be settled among family and friends. Hinting otherwise only served Octavian’s cause, but of course everyone knew Octavian had forced the meeting and the entire city awaited the outcome. What they expected the lad to accomplish I could not imagine.
As I had neither met nor seen Octavian prior to this occasion, I was anxious to have a look at the young man. I can tell you I was disappointed. I could not help thinking that Octavian looked nothing at all like me. From my own youthful perspective that was the critical issue of this gathering. Nor could I understand Caesar having confused me with this boy. Let me be honest here. I spent years wondering what Caesar had seen in my features that allowed him to mistake me for Octavian. I was a head taller. I was thicker and more athletic as well. I looked to all the world like a young man. He, with longer hair, some makeup and a stola, could have passed for a pretty young matron trembl
ing at the prospect of her wedding night.
I expect now the cut of our silhouettes was not that much different, and of course in a room full of older men a very young officer probably caught Caesar’s eye, because he desperately wanted to see Octavian when he looked in my direction. There was also a fact I could not know in those days. Caesar had not been well acquainted with Octavian at that point. He spent a great deal of time with Octavian in the summer after the Spanish campaign; prior to it he had been engaged in a thousand-and-one intrigues. In such a life one has precious little time for a sister’s grandson.
None of this, of course, was of the slightest importance to what followed, but fifty years on I still recall my acute agitation over Caesar confusing the two of us. So we all live, I suspect: obsessed with the silliest issues, missing entirely the surge and flow of that great river we call Time.
Antony and Dolabella received Octavian as one receives a child. No handshake was offered, nor did Octavian seem to expect it. Antony was a tall, powerfully built man but he was already going to fat. He often used his physical size and imposing baritone voice to intimidate men and thought to make the most of his mass with the waif-like Octavian. Dolabella, the more calculating of the two men, hung back throughout much of the exchange. He offered support when Antony appeared to falter. He answered in sensible tones whenever Octavian began gaining ground with his arguments.
