by Allan Massie
Metellus Cimber got to his feet.
"You have spoken for all of us, Cassius, and we are all of your mind."
There was a murmur of assent.
"Nevertheless," Cimber said - and my father-in-law frowned at the word - "nevertheless, I would like to urge yet again what I have urged before: that we invite Cicero to be one of us. I have two reasons which I would ask you all to consider carefully."
He coughed. Markie, I remember, was looking at him, with his mouth hanging open, a sign, known to me from childhood, that he was concentrating hard.
"In the first place," Cimber said, "Cicero's grey hairs will serve to make our cause appear absolutely respectable. It will help to convince the waverers, for they will say that if a man of Cicero's experience, virtue and reputation has associated himself with us, then our deed must be justified. If we neglect to secure his support, then people will wonder why he is not with us, and probably condemn us as rash young men whom the good sense of Cicero has spurned."
"Scarcely young, Cimber," I said. "Few of us can be called young, and most of us, you yourself of course too, have a great deal of military experience, and great exploits to our names. I doubt whether anyone could dismiss us in the way you suggest."
"Well," Cimber said. "That is only my first point, and with respect to Decimus Brutus, I stick to it. My second is even more compelling, in my opinion. When the deed is done, we are going to have to justify it in the Senate and from the rostra. Can any doubt that Cicero is of all men the most fitted to argue our case?"
This was a valid point, and I said so.
"All the same," I added, "I think your anxiety exaggerated. I have no doubt that we shall be able to win Cicero's support, even his wholehearted support, when the moment of danger is past, and when words rather than deeds are required. So, I propose that we acknowledge the justice of much that Metellus Cimber has said, and then agree to approach Cicero when the time is ripe. I suspect this is what he himself would prefer. He is after all an old man, and has never been conspicuous for courage."
Markie coughed.
"There's no point inviting Cicero to join us," he said. "He would certainly refuse. He will never follow any course which others have set. You know his conceit and vanity."
I knew Markie's jealousy and I guessed that he was afraid that Cicero would outshine him, taking the primacy in our affair, by reason of his talents and reputation; and of course Cassius had promised that primacy to Markie himself in order to lure him on.
Cassius nodded to me, inviting me to speak, as we had arranged he should.
"I have a question to put to you. It is a grave question which needs careful consideration. Shall no man be touched except Caesar?"
Casca said: "Antony and Lepidus. You're referring to our virtuous consul and the Master of the Horse?"
"Chiefly, yes ... we must secure our position."
"We would be mad not to," Casca said.
"It is indeed a point." Cassius spoke in a considering manner, as if his mind was not already determined. "Antony is loyal to Caesar. Various of us have sounded him out, carefully, and met with no satisfactory response. If he outlives Caesar, are we not likely to find our position endangered? As for Lepidus, he may not amount to much, but he has command of the only troops stationed near the city."
The meeting fell silent. People turned and whispered to their neighbours. Some were clearly agitated, not having anticipated such a proposal. Others nodded their heads in agreement, but none dared to be the first to speak out in approval.
"No, no, no." It was Markie, of course. "No, we are not butchers, Cassius. Think of the horror with which we regard Marius and Sulla and the proscriptions they so shamefully carried out. We are not butchers, I say that again. We are, as it were, priests of the Republic. Caesar's death will be a sort of sacrifice. A necessary sacrifice. I wish it was not necessary. I have, as you know, brooded long on the matter. I am not one to rush to judgment. But I am now convinced. However, if, my friends, you intend to extend the list of victims beyond that single name of Caesar, then I can have no part in your enterprise. I shall withdraw. Kill Caesar alone, and our motive will be recognised for what it is: an act of necessary virtue. Kill Caesar's friends, and it will seem as if we are no more than common cut-throats, bandits, murderers. That will be to invite a renewal of civil war. After the deed, let us practise clemency, and seek reconciliation with Caesar's friends. I repeat: either Caesar alone, or Marcus Brutus can have no hand in the business."
Casca groaned, but Markie carried the meeting. My second proposal, that I should alert the Ninth Legion, and summon them to Rome, ready to subdue any subsequent disorder, was alike defeated by Markie's argument.
"That," he said, "would give the wrong message. This is not a military coup, but, as I have said, an act of sacrifice. I cannot therefore consent, and unless I can freely and of my best judgment consent to any proposal then I cannot in honour be party to the deed. Besides, I am certain that you are too pessimistic, Decimus. There will be no subsequent trouble, for all good men will regard us with favour, and applaud our deed. We shall not be seen as villains, but as heroes who have restored liberty to Rome."
So, it was, ill-advisedly, decided. Only Caesar should die. Then all would be sweetness and light.
The Ides of March, the Theatre of Pompey, then a general acclamation of the Liberators.
Having at last allowed himself to be convinced, it seemed that Markie had cast aside all doubt.
Cassius saw the reason of my arguments, but he supported Markie's rejection of them, because he valued his participation more highly than he valued reason.
Chapter 21
On the eve of the Ides of March, Lepidus invited me to dine. I hesidated to accept
This was natural. I had after all recommended that he should suffer with Caesar. At the very least, I had argued, subsequent to our formal conclave, that he and Antony should be arrested. This modest proposal Cassius had also declined to entertain (even though his own judgment approved it) because he feared it would give Markie reason to withdraw from our enterprise. I recognised Cassius' weakness in this decision. For all his merits, and great strength of will, without which nothing would have been done, for he was truly the fount and origin of the business, he suffered from a defect which was the obverse of his singular qualities. He readily fell victim to what 1 can only call monomania; once he had an idea fixed in his mind, nothing could persuade him to alter it. That fixed idea was the necessity of Markie's participation. There was nothing I could do to shift it. Accordingly, of necessity, I acquiesced.
Nevertheless I was conscious that there was a certain delicacy involved in accepting Lepidus' invitation. Moreover, I would have liked to compose myself for our great action in silence and privacy. Yet there were cogent reasons to accept. For one thing I couldn't tell what doubts and fears my absence might not give rise to.
I was dismayed all the same to discover that Caesar was of the party. So was Trebonius. His presence alarmed me for I knew him to be nervous, and therefore feared that his manner might arouse suspicion. Metellus Cimber was there also, and this displeased Caesar, for he knew that Cimber was anxious that the decree of banishment which his brother had suffered, should be rescinded. He frowned on greeting Cimber, warning him by his manner that the moment was not propitious to raise his brother's case. Seeing this, I took Cimber by the sleeve, and warned him to keep silent. I reminded him also in an urgent whisper that he and his brother had a vital role to play the next morning.
"Very well," he said, "but it offends me to see the dictator so debonair and think of the injustice done to my poor brother, and to recall the indignity he has suffered and the hardships he now endures."
"Let all go well," I said, "and he will soon be restored to you."
Lepidus called us to supper. If I had not known him well, I would have read anxiety in his manner. But Lepidus was always fussy as an old hen. It was strange. Many women were said to judge him the handsomest man in Rome,
and certainly in repose he would have made an admirable model for a statue representing heroic virtue; but then he rarely was in repose. Now his fussing irritated Caesar, accustomed though he was to Lepidus' manner.
At last, he broke out:
"Let us be, Lepidus. Your dinner will not be spoiled if we delay a moment before attending it. In any case," he said to me, speaking more quietly, so as not to give offence to our host, "a dinner's but a dinner. I can't be troubled with these fellows who treat it as some sort of sacred rite."
This was true. Caesar was indifferent to what he ate and drank. I had often heard him mock his two former colleagues, Crassus and Pompey, for the care they took for their stomachs.
"I am in this respect a Greek," Caesar would say. "I come to table for conversation rather than food. As far as eating goes I am as happy with a hunk of bread and cheese, as with the elaborate fare these fellows insist on."
By unspoken agreement we avoided politics and war that evening, though Lepidus tactlessly tried to introduce the question of the Parthian campaign. Caesar himself swept that aside.
"If you seek enlightenment on that matter, Lepidus, call on me in office hours ..."
He turned to me and enquired as to Longina's state of health.
"I am told you have sent her to the country. I trust that doesn't indicate that there is some trouble."
"No," I said, "the air in Rome, you know. And then I think it is easier to get good milk in the country, and that is something for which she has developed a taste in her condition."
He snapped his fingers, to summon a secretary whom he kept always near him, and who, on this occasion, was perched on a stool in a little passage leading to an antechamber.
"Make a note, will you," Caesar said, "that I wish to have a report compiled concerning the quality of the milk sold in the city. It should also tell me the conditions in which cows are kept, the time that elapses before milk is offered for sale to the public, and whether new regulations are needed to control the trade. For instance, whether we should impose a limit on the number of cows kept within a space of a certain size. Oh, and anything else that is thought appropriate. I should like a preliminary report seven days from now, and the project to be completed by the end of the month. I have no doubt that we shall find several reforms called for."
He turned back to me.
"Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention, Mouse. I grow ever more convinced that the secret of successful administration lies in the realisation that ordinary people suffer most from what might seem tiny unimportant matters to such as us, but which in their condition prove irksome. The quality of milk will matter more to a young woman of the poorer classes than the question of whether your father-in-law should be consul in forty-two, as he wishes, or will have to wait till the next year."
Talk at the table had moved on to questions of philosophy while Caesar concerned himself with the city's milk supplies. Someone - I forget who now - was discoursing on Platonism and the Theory of Ideas. He was speaking approvingly. Metellus Cimber repudiated the notion.
"I'm a plain man and a soldier, and I have no time for this farrago. I assure you, it's no good arguing in the middle of a battle that the spear which is being thrust at your belly is only a shadowy representation of the idea of the true spear. No use at all. It's all mystical Greek nonsense and any Roman should be ashamed of spouting it."
"That's rather too strong, Cimber," I said. "I'm at one with you about the spear, of course. Nevertheless, there's a certain charm in Plato's thought, and when you consider abstract nouns - justice, of course, even love - you have to admit that there is some force in the suggestion that our experience of these is always imperfect."
Lepidus nodded his head several times, ducking towards me, to Cimber, and then to the man who had introduced the subject. It always pleased him to hear intellectual matters discussed at his table, even though he was quite incompetent to contribute to the debate himself.
Caesar, usually alert to this sort of conversation, seemed abstracted, and I felt ashamed of what I was saying. After all, I thought, men like Caesar and myself knew the urgency of a reality to which I supposed that Plato had been a stranger. So I said:
"And yet, in the end, this is all frippery when set beside the knowledge of reality which the experience of battle gives you. That is why we Romans are superior to the Greeks of today. We act; they talk."
Now, I wonder: will men still read and debate Plato when Caesar and Decimus Brutus are no more than tinkling names, or perhaps even forgotten?
The conversation turned towards the subject of death.
Someone asked Caesar what manner of death he would choose for himself.
"A sudden one."
Then he signed a number of official letters which a slave brought to the table.
I walked home with Trebonius and Metellus Cimber. They were excited by Caesar's reply to that last question. "It is as if he had some foreboding."
"Well," Cimber said, "there have been a number of strange happenings. Did you hear that some have seen men of fire struggling against each other in the heavens? I'm also told that a soothsayer - some say Spurinna, others Artemidorus - has warned Caesar to beware the Ides of March."
"Yes," I said, "and the same man - it was Spurinna by the way - warned him with equal zeal to beware the last Kalends of December."
A flash of lightning dazzled us. The ensuing thunder seemed to shake the roof of the Capitol. We took refuge from the sudden teeming rain in a doorway. The storm was brief. Later, of course, many reported that they had seen strange and wonderful things that night: a lioness was said to have whelped in the streets, ghosts to have walked, the rain turned to blood. It was all nonsense, provoked by excitement and the brief experience of an intense but ordinary thunderstorm. Nothing perverts reason like superstition and the credulity it engenders.
The storm abated, as abruptly as it had broken forth. We resumed our journey, till our ways diverged, when we embraced, bidding each other good sleep and a brave heart for the morn.
But I was reluctant to retire. I feared that sleep would elude me. I ached for Longina. I recalled as I splashed over the cobbles that night before we crossed the Rubicon. There had been exhilaration then.
I found myself in the vicinity of Markie's house. A servant answered my knock, led me to Porcia. "Is all well?" "Save the night."
"Marcus is studying and has asked not to be disturbed. He is working on his translation of the Pbaedo. It composes his mind. He is resolute."
"Good. Tell him I called. Tell him all is well, all prepared. Caesar is free of suspicion."
Later in my wanderings I encountered Casca. He had been dining with Antony, and had left him drunk.
"Don't feel like sleep, old boy. Let's go to a tavern."
I let him lead the way to a mean hovel under the rock of the Quirinal. There were some old soldiers there, on leave, playing dice. They laughed about the chances of the Parthian campaign.
"All I want," one said, "is a farm of my own, with a young wife and bairns. It's been promised me often enough. Now, they say, after Parthia. My father went against Parthia with fat old Crassus. He never came back."
"They say there are still Romans held in captivity there."
"Well, they're as far from a retirement farm as if they were fucking dead."
Then they recognised us and the veteran apologised for his words.
"We all get a bit down sometimes," he said, "thinking of the future. I've been in thirty-seven battles. It seems enough, that's all."
"But you don't need to apologise," Casca said. "Every man's entitled to his say. That's one of the glories of living in a Free State."
They joined in his laughter, and he ordered more wine for them.
The boy serving it caught his attention. Casca clasped the back of the boy's thigh, running his hand up below the tunic. "Well, you're a pretty piece," he said.
The boy dipped his curly head and giggled. Casca made a sign to the landlord,
and retired with the boy behind a curtain.
"Well, the General's in good form," the veteran said, leaning across to me.
"Casca is always Casca," I said.
"Aye, that's a comfort."
I went out into the streets. A whore accosted me. I had her up against a wall, paid her more than she demanded, and felt no relief.
I was still awake when the dawn brought light to my chamber.
I rose, bathed, had myself shaved, and dressed in a new toga. My dagger was concealed within its folds, in a sheath attached to a belt.
Chapter 22
It was a grey morning. A wind shook the branches of the trees and unleashed bursts of rain as I made my way, with firm step, to the Theatre of Pompey where the Senate was to meet. There were more rumours, I heard, that Caesar would be offered, or would claim, the crown. So much the better; they lent authority to our enterprise. Business was already under way; those of my colleagues who held the office of praetor hearing cases and giving judgment. I admired the resolution of their manner. Even my cousin Markie proved himself worthy. When a certain person appealed from his judgment to that of Caesar, Markie said: "Caesar neither does, nor shall, hinder me from acting and judging in accordance with the law." His voice sounded a little petulant, but his sentiments won a cheer, and he smiled. (There were those, by the way, who habitually described his smile as "sweet", one of his admirers even going so far as to compare it to sunshine after rain. I always thought it smug myself. Nevertheless I was glad to see Markie smile that morning, because I had feared that his nerve might fail, as I had so often known it do.)
Cassius embraced me. His elder son had that morning put on the toga virilis for the first time.
"It could not have happened on a more propitious day," Cassius said. "It is, after all, for our children and their children that we act this morning."
