The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

by Colleen McCullough

  Now to some specifics.

  The specter of William Shakespeare must always overshadow our preconceptions of Brutus, Cassius, Mark Antony, and Caesar’s assassination. With apologies to the Bard, I have decided to follow the ancient sources that state that Caesar said nothing before he died, and that Mark Antony didn’t have a chance to make a great funeral oration before the crowd surged.

  The etymology of the word “assassin” is younger than this period, but I have chosen to use it in my text because of its specificity to modern readers. Occasionally a more modern word is more satisfactory than any word a Latin speaker may have had at his or her command, but I have endeavored to keep this sort of thing to a minimum. Some words are untranslatable, and appear in the text in Latin, such as pomerium, mos maiorum and contio.

  The reader may be intrigued by some of the less well-known events of these generally best known years: Cato’s overland march to Africa Province, and the fate of Brutus’s head, for example. Others, like the battle of Philippi, are so confused that making head or tail of them is difficult. The two most widely read ancient sources, Plutarch and Suetonius, must be supplemented by dozens and dozens of others, including Appian, Cassius Dio and Cicero’s letters, speeches and essays. A bibliography is available if any interested party cares to write to me at P.O. Box 333, Norfolk Island, via Australia.

  One liberty I have taken with history concerns the reputed cowardice of Octavian during the campaign that culminated in the battle of Philippi. The more I delved into his early life, the less credible cowardice seemed. So many other aspects of his career at this stage indicate that he did not lack courage; he had quite astonishing sticking power, and tackled undertakings like two marches on Rome as a teenager with all the aplomb of a Sulla or a Caesar. I am in good company, incidentally, when I have the lad steal Caesar’s war chest; Sir Ronald Syme thought he did too.

  Getting back to the so-called cowardice, it struck me that there might be a physical reason for his behavior. What intrigued me was the statement that Octavian “hid in the marshes” during First Philippi, a battle we know produced so much dust that Cassius couldn’t even see Brutus’s camp from his own. In that conduct, I believe, lies the answer to the riddle. What if Octavian suffered from asthma? Asthma is a disorder that can imperil life, may diminish (or increase) with age, and is affected by foreign matter in the air, from dust to pollen to water vapor, and by emotional stress. It fits very well with what we know of the young Caesar Augustus. Maybe, after he had cemented his power, enjoyed a more stable private life, and had the gold of Egypt to put the Empire back on its feet, he suffered fewer or even no asthmatic attacks. Though he traveled, he was not an inveterate traveler like Caesar, nor does he seem to have experienced Caesar’s rude health. Did Octavian have asthma, it makes everything that happened to him during that campaign in Macedonia logical, including his fleeing to the sea breezes and cleaner air of the salt marshes while dry ground was fogged by a suffocating pall of chaffy dust. My recourse to asthma is not an excuse aimed at making Octavian look good, it is simply an attempt to explain his conduct in a reasonable, possible way.

  On the subject of Caesar’s “epilepsy,” I have professional experience to assist me. In a day and age when anticonvulsant medication was not available, Caesar’s mental acuity, including at the end of his life, militates against a long-term epileptic condition of generalized nature, though the only seizure described in the ancient sources seems to have been a generalized one. Many altered physiological states can cause a rare seizure in persons who do not have regular seizures, for epilepsy is a symptom rather than a disease. Trauma, space-occupying lesions of the brain, cerebral inflammation, severe electrolyte imbalances and acute hypoglycemia, among other things, can cause seizures. Since the ancient sources harp a little on Caesar’s indifference to food, I elected to attribute his seizure to an attack of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) following a systemic illness that may have involved the pancreas.

  So much has been written about the significance of Caesar’s wearing the high red boots of the Alban Kings in the last two months of his life that a spirit of mischief led me to gift him with varicose veins. The Roman boot was a low affair that would not afford support for varicosities, whereas a high, tightly laced boot would. I am as likely to be right as wrong!

  Health and disease are, not unnaturally, often misinterpreted by historians, whose academic inclinations lie far from medicine. It just seems to me that, particularly in times when knowledge of and treatment of ailments was less adept than it is now, many famous historical characters must surely have suffered common maladies like diabetes, asthma, varicose veins, heart failure, and Napoleon’s notorious hemorrhoids. Cancer was common, pneumonia often fatal, and poliomyelitis stalked Rome’s seven hills every summer. The description of the plague in Egypt sounds suspiciously like a close cousin to the Black Death, or else was it.

  There are aspects of Cleopatra’s relationship with Caesar and her subsequent relationship with Mark Antony that are overlooked, though they should not be.

  One must always be skeptical about Cleopatra, whom the mature Octavian/Augustus found it politic to malign; he didn’t dare have a civil war with Antony, so in her he found his foreign foe. The first master of propaganda, Octavian is responsible for her reputation as sexually promiscuous, up to and including denying that Caesarion was her son by Caesar. The truth is that her royal situation would have insisted that she be a virgin, but more than that: a Ptolemy, she would never have lowered herself to mate with a mere mortal. Circumstances like inundations in the Cubits of Death and an unavailable Ptolemaic husband made Caesar an eligible husband; he was generally regarded as a god throughout the eastern end of the Mediterranean when he landed in Alexandria.

  But having introduced a new strain of godly blood into her line, Cleopatra was then faced with the problem of reinforcing that new, Julian blood. Her first choice to achieve this would have been a full sister for Caesarion to marry, but when that did not happen, she had to find another source of Julian blood. Mark Antony’s mother was a Julia, so he qualified. There can be no doubt that, had he lived, Caesarion would have married his half sister by Antony, Cleopatra Selene. The only other answer to Cleopatra’s dilemma than a Julian bride for Caesarion was marriage to her own half sister, Arsinoë: an alternative she could not condone, as it would have led to her own murder.

  There were thus excellent dynastic reasons why Cleopatra espoused Mark Antony and had children by him. To do so ensured the House of Ptolemy Caesar. But, of course, Octavian destroyed all Cleopatra’s hopes by killing Caesarion before his little half sister was old enough for marriage. This child, Cleopatra Selene, was reared by Octavia and was eventually married to King Juba II of Numidia. Her twin brother, Ptolemy Helios, and their small brother, Ptolemy Philadelphus, were also raised by Octavia.

  Now to the drawings.

  Rarely has a people pre-dating the candid camera left such an immensely rich legacy of “warts and all” portraiture as the Romans. Identification of the busts depends largely upon coin profiles, as the busts were almost never labeled with a name. These unflattering likenesses were painted in the manner of a waxworks figure, which means that we do not see them today as they were in antiquity. It is for this reason that I have tried to bring the busts to life by drawing them. As I am no artist, I beg to be excused their faults. Most have lost their necks, so I fall down badly on necks. The hair I have kept stylized because to do so emphasizes the genius of the Roman barber, who seems to have catered for the individual mutiny of his master’s hair amazingly well.

  First, the authenticated busts.

  Good busts of Caesar all possess certain similarities: the frown lines, the creases at the outer corners of the eyes, the ears, the extraordinary cheekbones, and the slightly uptilted lips.

  The Cassius is drawn from the Montreal bust, and confirms the impression one must get from Cicero’s famous “shipwreck” letter, that Cassius did not look lean and hungry!

&n
bsp; There are many busts of Caesar Augustus, and of all ages save old age. Though they do have vague echoes of Alexander the Great, inspection always reveals the prominent ears and unclassical nose.

  Cato we know is Cato thanks to a labeled bust found in North Africa, where he was adored.

  The young Cleopatra is from the marble head in Berlin, but none of her extant likenesses do the enormous beaked nose of her coin portraits justice. It was truly immense.

  Lepidus, Cicero and Agrippa are authentic.

  The Brutus is the bust in the Prado at Madrid; note the fascinating muscle wasting in the right cheek.

  Marcus Antonius is an elusive character; perhaps no other famous Roman has as many so-called likenesses as he, all very different from one another—and from the coin profile, which depicts a huge nose and chin striving to meet across a thick-lipped mouth. I have chosen to draw from the bust that most resembles the coin profile.

  Now come a group of three drawings that are not authentic, but bear similarities to some well-authenticated people. The Lucius Caesar is said to be a bust of the great Caesar, but is not: the frown lines are absent, so are the creases in the outer corners of the eyes; the shape of the skull and face are wrong, and there is a general asymmetry that Caesar’s face does not have. Whether this is Lucius Caesar, I don’t know, but the subject certainly looks like a Julian.

  The Calpurnia reminded me of an authenticated bust of her father, Lucius Calpurnius Piso. I can say the same for Porcia.

  The rest of the drawings are from busts of the proper date, but anonymous. They are there because it’s fun to put a name to a face, and I maintain that my casting is better than Hollywood’s.

  Glossary

  ABSOLVO The term employed by a court jury when delivering a verdict of acquittal.

  adamas Diamond, known to be the hardest of all substances.

  Acadamic An adherent of Platonic philosophy.

  aedes The house of a god not called a temple because it had not been used for augury at the time of its consecration.

  aedile A Roman magistrate. There were four: two were plebeian aediles, two were curule aediles

  The plebeian aediles were set up in 493 B.C. to assist the tribunes of the plebs (q.v.), particularly to guard the right of the Plebs to its head-quarters in the temple of Ceres. They were elected by the Plebeian Assembly, served for one year, and were not entitled to sit in the curule chair or have lictors.

  Two curule aediles were created in 367 B.C. to give the patricians a share in this office. They were elected by the Popular Assembly, served for one year, and had the right to sit in the curule chair. They were preceded by two lictors.

  All four became responsible for the care of Rome’s streets, squares, water supply, drains and sewers, traffic, public buildings, building standards and regulations for private construction, public monuments and facilities, markets, weights and measures (standard sets of these were housed in the basement of the temple of Castor and Pollux), some games and the public grain supply.

  They had the power to fine citizens and non-citizens alike for infringements of any regulations, and used the money to help fund their games.

  Aeneas The son of King Anchises of Trojan Dardania and the goddess Venus/Aphrodite, he fled the burning city of Troy (Ilium) with his aged father on his shoulders and the Palladium tucked under one arm. After many adventures en route, he arrived in Latium and founded the race which produced the Romans. His son Iulus by his Latin wife, Lavinia, became the first King of Alba Longa; the Julians traced their descent from Venus through him.

  aether That part of the upper atmosphere permeated by godly forces, or the air immediately surrounding a god. It also meant the blue sky of daylight.

  ager publicus Land vested in Roman public ownership. It became politically contentious after the Gracchi (q.v.) and Marius (q.v.) began to seize it to divide up among the poor or poor soldiers as a kind of pension. This was bitterly opposed by the Senate.

  agora An open space in a Greek city, usually surrounded by colonnades, used as a meeting place.

  agrarian Pertaining to land; in this book, farmland.

  Alexander the Great King of Macedonia, the third of that name. He was born in 356 B.C. and succeeded his father, Philip II, when twenty years old; haunted by the specter of the Persians, he vowed to deal them a blow so hard that they would never again be able to invade Europe. In 334 B.C. he led an army across the Hellespont. His odyssey between this date and his death in Babylon at thirty-two took him, always victorious, as far as the Indus River in modern Pakistan. When he tried to go farther east, his army mutinied, so he was forced to turn back. His tutor as a boy was Aristotle. Dying without a true successor, his empire did not survive him as a single entity, but he seeded Hellenic kings in the persons of his marshals, who divided most of Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, Media and Persia among them.

  amicus, amici Friend, friends.

  Amisus Modern Samsun, on the Black Sea in Turkey.

  amo, amas, amat “I love, thee loves, he/she/it loves.”

  amygdalae Almond-shaped objects or spaces.

  Anatolia Roughly, modern Asian Turkey.

  animus Quoting the Oxford Latin Dictionary: “The mind as opposed to the body, the mind or soul as constituting with the body the whole person.” To a Roman, it probably did not mean an immortal soul; it was simply the force that animated, endowed life.

  Apollonia The southern terminus of the Via Egnatia on the west (Adriatic) coast of Macedonia. It lay near the mouth of the modern Vijosë River in Albania.

  Apulia That region of southeastern Italy where the Apennines flatten somewhat and the boot’s “spur” is located. Its people were considered by the Romans to be backward bumpkins.

  aquilifer The best soldier in a legion, he carried the silver Eagle and was expected to keep it safe from enemy capture. As a mark of his distinction, he wore a wolf or lion skin.

  Arabia Felix Happy, or Lucky, Arabia. That part of the Arabian peninsula at the south end of the Red Sea.

  Arelate Modern Arles, in France.

  Armenia Parva Little Armenia. It lay west of Armenia proper around the headwaters and upper course of the Euphrates River, and was high, extremely mountainous and inhospitable.

  Arretium Modern Arezzo, situated on the Arno River in Italy.

  Assembly In Latin, comitium, comitia. Any gathering of Roman citizen men convoked to deal with governmental, legislative, electoral or judicial matters. There were three major Assemblies, of the Centuries, the People and the Plebs.

  The Centuriate Assembly consisted of the People in their Classes, which were defined by a means test and were economic in nature. It met to elect the consuls, the praetors and (every five years) the censors. It also met to hear trials of perduellio treason (q.v.).

  The other two major Assemblies were tribal in nature, rather than economic.

  The Assembly of the People or Popular Assembly allowed the full participation of patricians, and it met in the thirty-five tribes among which all Roman citizens were distributed. It was convoked by a consul or a praetor, could formulate laws, and elected the curule aediles, quaestors and tribunes of the soldiers. It could also conduct trials. Like the Centuriate Assembly, it was religiously constrained; prayers had to be said and the auspices taken before the meeting could begin.

  The Plebeian Assembly did not allow the participation of patricians, and was convoked only by a tribune of the plebs. No prayers were said or auspices taken. It had the power to enact laws and conduct trials, and elected the tribunes of the plebs and the plebeian aediles.

  No Roman Assembly used an individual citizen’s vote directly. In the Centuriate Assembly his vote was credited to his Century of his Class, the single vote of his Century going the way of the majority of its members. In the Popular and Plebeian Assemblies, his vote was credited to his tribe, the single vote of the tribe going the way of the majority of its members. The only time a man’s vote counted directly was in a court jury.

  Atropos T
here were three goddesses of Fate. Clotho spun the thread, Lachesis wove it in a pattern, and Atropos cut the thread with her shears, thus regulating the origin, course, and end of life.

  augur, auspices The augur was a priest whose duties concerned divination rather than prognostication, and was elected (for life). He inspected the proper object or signs to ascertain whether or not the projected undertaking had the approval of the gods, be it a meeting, a war, a proposed new law, or any other public business. A protocol governing interpretation existed, so an augur “went by the book” rather than claimed to have psychic powers.

  auxiliaries Troops serving in a Roman army but not owning the Roman citizenship. Cavalrymen were usually auxiliaries.

  Baetis River The modern Guadalquivir, in Spain. According to the geographer Strabo, the Baetis valley was the most fertile and productive land in the world.

  ballista In Republican times, a piece of artillery designed to hurl stones and boulders. The missile was put in a spoon-shaped arm that was put under extreme tension by a tightly wound rope spring; when the spring was released, the arm shot into the air and came to rest against a thick pad, propelling the missile a considerable distance. It was accurate when expertly used.

  barbarian Derived from a Greek word having strong onomatopoeic overtones; the Greeks had fancied, upon hearing the tribal peoples of the north speak, that they barked like dogs-“bar-bar.” The word was not applied to any Mediterranean or Middle Eastern people. It referred to the peoples of the steppes and forests, who were deemed uncivilized, lacking in any desirable or admirable culture.

  Barium Modern Bari, on the Adriatic coast of Italy.

  basilica A large building devoted to public activities such as courts of law or to commercial activities. The basilica was clerestory-lit and was erected at the expense of some civic-minded Roman nobleman, usually of consular status. His basilica bore his name.