Cicero

by Anthony Everitt

  The precise decision as to where to conduct the assassination was made on short notice, when a meeting of the Senate was convened for the unlucky date of March 15 at Pompey’s theater. This would be a controlled environment and, when the deed was done, the conspirators would be able to explain themselves at once to their peers.

  AS the chosen date was a holiday, a gladiatorial display was due to take place later in the day in the theater. Brutus, as Praetor, was in charge of the gladiators, who could be useful in the aftermath of the assassination if anything went wrong. A strong detachment of gladiators was assembled, which could be brought into the theater precincts on the pretext of a rehearsal or a training exercise. There was good reason for this precaution. Just outside the city limits on a small island on the Tiber, an army loyal to Caesar under the command of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who as Master of the Horse was the Dictator’s official deputy, was encamped. A stone bridge connected the island to the city and, although soldiers were forbidden to enter Rome, it was perfectly possible that Lepidus would march in to put down any trouble.

  By March 15 information about the conspiracy was leaking out. Almost as soon as Caesar left the State House in the morning a member of his household who had heard something of what was going on came running into the building to report what he had gleaned. AS he did not know the date and time of the attempt, he simply told Caesar’s third wife, Calpurnia, that he needed to see him on urgent business. He sat down to await his return.

  While Brutus and Cassius were standing around with the other Senators waiting for Caesar’s arrival, a certain Popillius Laenas came up to them. “I join you in praying for the accomplishment of what you have in mind,” he said. “I urge you not to delay, for people are talking about it.” At the last moment, a philosophy teacher, Artemidorus, pushed his way forward as Caesar was making his way into the meeting hall. A former tutor of Brutus and still one of his friends, he knew all the details of the conspiracy. He had written down a short summary of the plan to kill the Dictator and was determined to reveal what was afoot. Artemidorus was only one among a crowd of petitioners and he noticed that while Caesar accepted every paper that was thrust into his hands, he immediately handed it over to one of his aides. According to Plutarch, Artemidorus pleaded: “Read this one, Caesar, and read it quickly and by yourself. I promise you it’s important and concerns you personally.”

  Caesar took the document and several times appeared to be on the point of looking through it, but was prevented from doing so by all the people who came up to talk with him. It was the only paper he was holding when he finally walked through the doorway to join the Senate. The success of the assassination was a close-run thing.

  There was an understanding that, as a sign of their commitment and solidarity, all the conspirators should try to stab their victim. AS a result, many wounded each other accidentally in the scrum and few had a good chance to strike home. An autopsy later showed that only one wound had been fatal—the second, which Publius Servilius Casca’s brother had delivered to the flank.

  Having witnessed the flurried, bloodied melee, none of the audience of Senators was in a mood to linger. Although one Senator remained long enough to say, “There has been enough kowtowing to a tyrant,” there was a noisy rush to the doors while Brutus, brandishing his dagger at the center of the hall, shouted his congratulations to Cicero “on the recovery of freedom.” Cicero was among those making their escape.

  Antony, in conversation with Trebonius in the colonnade outside, quickly realized what had happened. (Perhaps Trebonius told him.) He changed into a slave’s clothes and went to ground. Appian reports that even Caesar’s official lictors ran away, and soon the dead Dictator was alone. His body lay undisturbed for some hours.

  The assassins wound their togas around their arms to serve as shields and, with bloodstained swords in their hands, ran out into the open, shouting that they had destroyed a tyrant and a king. One of them carried a freedom cap (a skullcap worn by freed slaves) on a spear. They were joined by a handful of Senators, who decided to seize the hour. Among them was the youthful Dolabella, Deputy Consul to the Dictator and now, he supposed, Consul. (He was wrong in this, for his appointment needed formal approval, which was given later.)

  It did not take long for panic to ensue. Members of the public, stampeding from the theater and its environs, shouted: “Run! Bolt your doors. Bolt your doors.” The conspirators, followed by their gladiators and some servants, made their way through the Field of Mars to the Forum, still shouting for Cicero. News of what had happened, or at least that something terrible had happened, spread quickly. Nicolaus, commented: “The city looked as if it had been captured by an enemy.”

  Brutus and those with him tried their best to calm the crowds in the Forum, but there was little they could do and so they climbed up the Capitoline Hill, where they could beat off any attackers. They were able to catch their breath and plan their next move. Looking down later in the day, they would have been able to see a small, sad procession cross the Forum. Three slave boys, the only members of Caesar’s entourage not to have fled, had loaded the dead body into the Dictator’s litter and were carrying it home. AS it passed through the streets it was greeted with cries of lamentation from people standing on housetops. The curtains of the litter were drawn back; the dead man’s face could be seen covered in blood and his arms were hanging down. When the body arrived in the Forum and was taken to the State House at the far end of the square from the Capitol, Calpurnia and a crowd of wailing women and slaves came out to meet it.

  Slowly the public mood quieted, as it became clear that no further deaths were taking place and that there would be no looting. In the afternoon Brutus came down into the Forum to address the People. Before he did so, arrangements were made to ensure that a suitably friendly audience was recruited. This did not prove difficult, for much of the urban population was unemployed and attendance could be bought. Also, Rome was full of demobilized veterans, camped in temple precincts and sanctuaries, who were waiting for transport to the new colonies Caesar had founded in Italy and abroad. They were not averse to making a few sesterces on the side.

  Despite the fact that many of those in the Forum had been bribed, they lacked the courage to show their approval of what had been done. There was still a widespread mood of shock and uncertainty. However, the majority calculated that its best interests lay in stability. People were willing to accept a peaceful resolution of the crisis and an amnesty for the killers.

  Brutus took another precautionary measure. When he, Cassius and others arrived in the Forum, they were accompanied by Dolabella, now wearing a Consular toga and surrounded by lictors; this lent the occasion an official air and suggested that the orderly business of government was being maintained.

  In their speeches, Brutus and Cassius avoided triumphalism. They said they had acted from disinterested motives. They had no intention of seizing power, for their only aim was to preserve their freedom and independence. The crowd was attentive and reasonably sympathetic. Other speakers included Dolabella and a Praetor, who unwisely launched into a passionate denunciation of Caesar. This was too much for the veterans and, according to one account, they shouted him down. Crestfallen, the conspirators withdrew to the safety of the Capitol, where they spent the night. The city was not safe enough for them to return to their homes.

  14

  THE HEIR

  Enter Octavian: March–December 44 BC

  The two years that followed Caesar’s assassination are the best documented in Roman history. Even so, the actors in the story do not always betray their motives. The press of events was so confusing that even when they were sure of what they wanted they often had no idea how best to achieve it. It was difficult to sense where advantage lay. Interpretation has also been hindered by the fact that the eventual winner in the struggles that lay ahead imposed his own interpretation on the past. The losers lost more than their lives, they lost their stories.

  Brutus, Cassius and th
e other conspirators were much criticized at the time—and have been in the two millennia that have followed—for laying no plans for the aftermath of the assassination. For them, the act of killing, echoing Rome’s deep past, was less a political event than a sacred ritual. Just as soldiers traditionally purified their weapons in March, so the Republic had cleansed itself. The man who dressed in a king’s robes had suffered a king’s death. Tactical details could wait for later.

  The Dictator had maintained, if only in form, the constitutional proprieties and Brutus and his friends judged that, once he had been removed, nobody would seriously try to prevent the Republic from slipping back into gear. Their assumption was that the constitution would simply and automatically resume its functions. The Senate would have little difficulty in taking over the reins of power. This was not an unreasonable analysis and was confirmed in the event—for the time being.

  A great deal hung on how Antony behaved. It was a question of character and here opinions varied. Cicero’s assessment was much the same as it had been when he had had to prise the teenage rebel out of Curio’s life: he was an unscrupulous and immoral rascal. Although he did not say so at once, Cicero took the view in April that “the Ides of March was a fine deed, but half done.” That is, Antony should have been killed along with his master. Later he remarked to Cassius: “A pity you didn’t invite me to dinner on the Ides of March! Let me tell you, there would have been no leftovers.”

  Against Cassius’s advice, Brutus had refused to have Antony killed. By implication, he must have judged that Antony was unlikely to seek to step into the Dictator’s shoes. Brutus was probably right. Antony did not have the prestige, the ability or the application to be a Caesar. An acute observer remarked: “If a man of Caesar’s genius could find no way out [of Rome’s problems], who will find one now?” Antony certainly had no solution.

  Now in his late thirties, Antony was a handsome man, built like a bull and, according to Cicero, “as strong as a gladiator.” He was sexually promiscuous and hard drinking and retained the taste he had acquired as a young man for bad company: actors and prostitutes. A good soldier, he was popular with his men. He could summon up great resources of stamina and energy, but only when occasion demanded. His patchy record when he was in charge of Italy during the Dictator’s absences suggested a lack of aptitude for civilian administration. His style was straightforward, and when he said something he tended to mean it.

  In all likelihood, Antony genuinely endorsed a return to constitutional methods and, if he had a future career path in mind, might have found in Pompey a safer model than in Caesar. A five-year governorship after his Consulship would establish him as the leading figure in the Republic. He could become the first man in Rome, as Pompey had been, without challenging the very foundations of Roman tradition and its familiar balanced rivalries.

  Two important groups felt very differently. For the moment they were powerless because leaderless, but their minds were set on revenge and they waited for their opportunity. The first of these groups was the army. Tens of thousands of men were still armed—two legions in Italian Gaul, three in Transalpine Gaul and six in Macedonia, waiting for the now aborted Parthian expedition. There were six legions in Spain, and more troops in Africa and Asia Minor. So far as those who had served under Caesar were concerned, relations with their Commander-in-Chief had sometimes been stormy, but they had adored him. They wanted blood for blood.

  Second, the aides and civil servants whom the Dictator had hired had lost their jobs. They were able and dedicated. At their head were Balbus and Oppius: everything they had been working for would be lost forever if they could not find a way of subverting the newly restored Republic. They soon realized that Antony was going to be of no use. But they had another unsuspected card in their hand, and in due course they would play it.

  By contrast, Cicero was thrilled by the dramatic turn of events. A hurried note he wrote to one of the conspirators probably refers to the assassination. “Congratulations. For myself, I am delighted. You can count on my affection and active concern for your interests. I hope I have your affection and want to hear what you are doing and what is going on.”

  He did not have to wait long for a briefing. During the evening of March 15 he visited the conspirators at the Capitol. He believed they should seize the initiative. With Antony’s disappearance, Brutus and Cassius were the senior officeholders and Cicero advised them to call a Senate meeting immediately for the following day. Proceduralists to the core, they preferred to wait and send a delegation to find the Consul. It was a bad mistake—and Cicero never let them forget it.

  Realizing that his life was not in danger, Antony spent the night taking steps to secure his position. Lepidus led his legion from the island in the Tiber into the city and secured the Forum. Fires were lit to illuminate the streets and friends or associates of the conspirators were revealed scurrying to and from Senators’ houses in search of support. Antony went to the State House, where the widowed Calpurnia, with the help of Caesar’s secretary, handed over all the Dictator’s papers and a large sum of money. He announced that, in his capacity as Consul, he would convene the Senate at a temple near his house on March 17.

  Antony also met with Balbus and the following year’s designated Consul, the gourmet and writer Hirtius. The former argued, unsurprisingly, for the severest measures against the assassins, the latter for caution. This disagreement boded ill for the dead Dictator’s party: it revealed a split which constitutionalists hurried to exploit.

  On March 16 Brutus addressed a large gathering at the Capitol, but he made little impression. He was a plain, unemotional speaker and his performance more than justified Cicero’s low opinion of the Attic style of oratory. He let it be known that, had he been asked to give an address, he would have spoken much more passionately.

  The conspirators stayed away from the Senate on the following day, although they were invited to attend. Die-hard Caesarians were a minority, but a lively debate started as to whether to declare Caesar a tyrant and give immunity to the assassins. Antony interrupted and went straight to the point. He ruled that if Caesar was condemned, it followed that his appointments would be illegal. Was this what the Senate wanted? Self-interest immediately concentrated minds. Senators jumped up and protested against having to go through another round of elections. Dolabella, so strong in his denunciation of the Dictator and all his works the previous day, was first among them, for he knew that his own position as Consul would be at risk.

  Privately Cicero would have much preferred to have drawn a line under the past and agreed on a new start. But with veterans surrounding the meeting and Senators fearful of losing their offices and provincial commands, that was out of the question. So he spoke strongly in favor of Antony’s proposal. A compromise was found: all Caesar’s official acts were to be approved and, in return, the conspirators would not be punished. The formal decision was taken at a Senate meeting on March 18. A few weeks later Cicero justified himself to Atticus: “What else could we have done? By that time we were long sunk.”

  One of the important results of the Senate’s ruling was the protection it gave to the leading conspirators. In addition to deciding the Consulships for the coming three years, Caesar had allocated provincial governorships. Brutus and Cassius were to have Macedonia and Asia in 43. Decimus Brutus was confirmed in the current year for Italian Gaul, where he would be the first conspirator to take charge of an army, for two legions were stationed there. If trouble arose, these provinces would provide power bases where the conspirators could legitimately establish themselves.

  AS the Senate was about to break up, a noisy discussion broke out over Caesar’s will. His father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, was asked not to announce its contents or conduct a public funeral for fear of disturbances. He angrily refused and, after renewed debate, permission was granted.

  When published, the will inflamed opinion on the street, for it bequeathed Caesar’s gardens on the far side of the
Tiber as a public park and left 300 sesterces to every Roman citizen. Popular with the masses, it was not calculated to please Antony, for it also disclosed that the chief heir to the Dictator’s fortune was Caius Octavius, his eighteen-year-old grandnephew. He was also designated as his adoptive son; from now on his formal name would be Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus (in English, Octavian). The news came as a complete surprise to everyone, including its young beneficiary. The will concerned his personal estate and did not mean that Caesar was giving him the Republic. Antony saw himself as the inheritor of Caesar’s political legacy and that was how he meant it to remain. He did not anticipate a teenage boy to be a serious threat.

  The funeral on March 20 promised to be a very grand affair on the Field of Mars and was to be preceded by speeches in the Forum before the bier. Brutus and the other conspirators foresaw trouble and locked themselves in their houses. A funeral pyre was built on the Field of Mars and, because the traditional procession of mourners bringing funeral gifts would have taken all day to file past, everyone was invited to come there by whatever route he pleased and without order of precedence.

  In the Forum, an ivory couch stood on the Speakers’ Platform, draped in an embroidered gold-and-purple pall. In front a temporary chapel had been erected, modeled on the Temple of Venus in Caesar’s new Forum. Piso brought the body, clothed in the purple gown the Dictator had been wearing when killed, into the square, laid it on the couch and posted a large group of armed men to guard it. There were loud cries of mourning and the men clashed their weapons.

  Antony, in his capacity as mourner, friend and kinsman (his mother was a member of the Julius clan) of the dead Dictator, delivered the funeral oration. There are two accounts of what happened. According to the historian Suetonius, writing about a century and half later but with access to the imperial archives, Antony dispensed with the usual speech and asked a herald to read out the recent decree voting Caesar “all divine and human honors” and the oath by which the Senate had vowed to watch over his safety. He then added a few comments.