by Allan Massie
Caesar was naturally an inspiration. Yet, speaking under my breath to you, my sons, let me confess I never cared for Julius. There was something meretricious in him, something rotten. He revealed the full decadence of the Republic; when he led his legions across the Rubicon in that winter dawn, it was as if he tore a veil away from a shrine and discovered to all that the God had abandoned it. He was a great general; his conquest of Gaul and defeat of Pompey were imperishable feats. But what did he do then? He was tempted by monarchy - I have it on good authority that when Antony three times presented him with a kingly crown on the occasion of the Feast of the Lupercal, both Caesar and Antony expected that the crowd would hail him as king, and thus allow him to accept the crown. Inept politicians! Not to have arranged that the wind would blow that way! There was a vanity to him; he wore the high red boots of the old kings of Alba Longa; can you imagine me behaving so absurdly? But there was room for such vanity - it filled a vacancy at the heart of his imagination. Having achieved supreme power, he did not see that he was only at the beginning of his labours.
I often talked of Julius with Cicero that long summer ago. When he sensed - oh he had the sharp intuition of the great cross-examiner he was - that I too had my doubts about my father, Cicero let slip the cloak of discretion which he always wore as if it chafed him. He ran his hand through his grey hair, leaned forward and thrust his scraggy neck towards me:
The truth is,' he said, he was an adventurer, a gambler. He had no purpose beyond the immediate. He had no sense of history, no sense of the relationship that must exist between the past, the present and the future. He had never analysed the causes of his own elevation because he believed it had been achieved by fortune and his own merit; his genius in short. Such nonsense!'
'Do you think,' I said - I made a habit of seeking Cicero's opinion even when I had no need of it - 'do you think that there was any deep purpose behind his admission of Gauls to the Senate?'
Cicero flushed: 'There was certainly a purpose, but it was simply to insult the senators by making us associate with barbarians. Can you imagine anything more contemptuous?'
'No, sir,' I said, shaking my head and keeping my face straight, 'but tell me how in your view, garnered from your life's distinguished harvest, the Free State can be restored.'
Cicero sighed: 'I had almost come to believe it impossible. Perhaps, my dear boy, you have been sent by the gods to make it possible. What is needed is resolution, and the agreement of all good men throughout society to work together, and obey the laws. There is no fault in our laws. The fault, Octavius, lies in our own natures. Let me give you two examples. Have you ever heard of Verres?'
'Who, thanks to your sublime oratory, has not heard of Verres?'
'Well, yes, my prosecution made some stir in its time. I am glad it is still read. You remember what I said? Let me at any rate refresh your memory. I dislike quoting myself, but I know no other way to make my present point. . .'
And he did; it lasted half an hour (all from memory of course) and he was (as I guessed) hardly half-way through when he was suddenly taken by old man's weakness and had to leave me to empty his bladder. I shan't weary you with his speech: suffice to say that Verres was a dishonest and extortionate Governor of Sicily, whom Cicero had very properly prosecuted (nowadays of course a modern Verres would not be able to commit even a quarter of the offences of the original, and we have more efficient ways of dealing with such malpractice than by public trial).
I had thought the interruption might spare me the rest of the speech. Not a bit of it; he was in full flow before he was properly back in the room, doubtless lest I should change the subject.
Eventually he paused a moment. 'My peroration,' he said, 'has been called sublime.' And he gave it to me elaborate and fortissimo. (I would never advise anyone to copy his magniloquent and excessively mannered style of oratory. It was, I suppose, superb or sublime, if you like; but prolix and too carefully prepared to convince. All right in its time I daresay, but terribly dated and disgustingly florid in my view. However, I applauded as was only polite.)
Then he said: 'Now look on the other side. I myself have been a Governor too. In Cilicia, a province lamentably looted by my predecessors. I refused to follow their example. No expense was imposed on the wretched provincials during my government, and when I say no expense, I do not speak hyperbolically. I mean, none, not a farthing. Imagine that. I refused to billet my troops on them. I made the soldiers sleep under canvas. I refused all bribes. My dear boy, the natives regarded my conduct with speechless admiration and astonishment. I tell you it was all I could do to prevent them from erecting temples in my honour.
Innumerable babies were named Marcus, I could hardly object to that. When I took slaves in my campaigns I deposited in the Treasury the 12 million sesterces I received for their sale. That's how to govern; that's the way it should be done. Not like Verres, not like Marcus Brutus.' He broke off to giggle. 'Do you know, dear boy, what interest he charged the wretched Cypriots under his care? No? You won't believe it. Forty-eight per cent. That's right, it's true. Forty-eight per cent. Imagine. But, dear boy, you see what I mean? There is nothing wrong with the Republic that a change of heart and a return to the stern morality of our ancestors will not put right. Meanwhile though, we have this wild beast Antony to account for. The stories he has spread about you! It's shameful. An old man like myself can stand slander; it must always hurt the young.' Such optimism, such naivety, in one who had seen so much!
TWO
By late summer Antony had hardly advanced in his aim to dominate the State. In August Cicero returned from the seaside, invigorated by the benign climate and other delights of the Bay of Naples, and attacked Antony in the Senate. I did not of course hear the speech. My brother-in-law Gaius Marcellus told me it had been 'the usual thing, wind, wind, wind'. For all that, it goaded Antony. He had been thinking himself into the role of proconsul; it irritated him to have the old man remind everyone of his patchy history and moral insufficiency. The Senate may indeed have emptied during Cicero's speech ('the younger men call him the dinner-gong, you know,' Marcellus said), but the speech was copied out and went round the forum. It made an impression People saw Antony could not be trusted. They sought a man they could rely on. Cicero was too old, the consuls Pansa and Hirtius too obscure, the self-styled Liberators could never hope to overcome the antipathy of Caesar's legions: the way was opening before me.
Antony blundered. Early in September Agrippa came to me, sweating with agitation.
'We're done for,' he said. 'We'd better pack our bags.'
'What is it?' I said.
I sat down and called on Agrippa to do likewise. This is invariably the wisest and most effective response to signs of incipient panic. Either sit down yourself, or tell others to do so, or both. Why, I once quelled a mutinous cohort by snapping out the order to sit down. You can have no idea till you see it how effective such a command can be. A crowd on its feet feels its corporate strength. Make them sit down and you restore their sense of being individuals. You make them conscious of themselves.
'Antony has sent a letter to the Pontifex Maximus.' 'Much good may that do him. Lepidus is nothing but a bag of wind.'
'You don't understand. He's published the letter, and he accuses you of plotting his murder. He requests your arrest and immediate trial.'
I rang the bell for a slave.
'Find Maecenas and ask him to come here. And bring some wine. You look as if you could do with a drink, Grippa,' I said.
'Well,' I said to Maecenas when he appeared. 'Have we planned many murders lately?'
'Not many.'
'Not even the consul's?'
'Not that I know of. I hope you didn't disturb me from a very interesting couch just to play the fool. What is this?' 'Tell him, Grippa.'
'No,' Agrippa said, afraid now of being laughed at, 'you tell him.'
'But this is wonderful,' Maecenas said. 'I don't regret my postponed couch at all. It's the first point
he's really lost to us.' 'Precisely. How do we exploit it?' 'Laughter.'
'My own opinion, but it shows he is taking us seriously.'
I went to my desk and wrote for a few minutes.
'How about this?' I said, and read the following to them:
'Friends, Romans, Countrymen: you will all remember that less than six months ago, the Consul Mark Antony prefaced his eulogy of my murdered father with these very words. In that noble and moving speech which his secretaries provided for him, he praised my father's noble generosity and with a nice irony exposed the dishonour of his murderers. Well and good, my friends; my gratitude for that speech is still warm. Irony, however, is a corrupting habit, not unlike wine in its operation. Drunkards begin by drinking with the same discrimination as the ordinary man who likes a glass of wine. But, whereas the ordinary man is moderately enlivened and improved with wine, which he has prudently mixed with water, drunkards are enflamed by it, and their judgement quite destroyed. So with the habit of irony. It can possess a man. I can only assume that this has happened to our noble and honourable consul. (It must be irony, for it could not be wine, could it?)
'Why do I say this, you ask? Well, there has come to my knowledge a story said to be related by the consul. It appears that he is accusing me of plotting his own murder.
'The charge is so preposterous that I do not intend to offer a defence. I shall not insult the consul's momentary aberration by pretending to take it seriously. Had such a charge been offered by any other man, I would have supposed him drunk. The consul of course cannot have been in his cups. No man, guiding the affairs of the Republic in this terrible year, would be so rash and irresponsible as to fall into intoxication. We all know the consul's devotion to duty and the sobriety of his judgement. I can therefore only assume that he has fallen victim to the habit of irony, and that the accusation is an elaborate private joke. My only complaint is that it is an unfriendly one. Not everyone will see it, for not everyone shares the consul's delicious sense of fun.
'And I deny it only because I should not like it to be thought by my father's friends that my feelings towards one of his lieutenants were anything but warm. Of course I don't blame the consul, especially as it occurs to me that he may have taken seriously a jest propounded by his wife Fulvia. And we all know who her first husband was, what standards of public spirit and private honour he always displayed, with what delighted wit Fulvia and he concocted similar accusations, what a practised hand she is, and how wisely and firmly she guides the consul.
'That,' I said, 'ought to do for him.'
'Beautiful.' Maecenas leapt up and embraced me. 'You've caught him hip and thigh. They'll laugh at this all over Italy. The only thing is, my dear, you may have over-estimated the intelligence of the public. You can go broke doing that, as any theatre manager will tell you. Let me just tinker with the last bit. . . da-da-da-di. . . how about this now? Start from where you bring in Fulvia, and go on: "and we all know that Fulvia used to be married to the ex-noble Clodius, whose religious zeal was such that he even dressed up as a woman to attend the sacred Festival of the Good Goddess; whose devotion to truth caused him to testify in a thousand law-courts; whose love of the Republic was so strong that he became a plebeian in order to qualify for election as a tribune; and whose sense of the ridiculous was so acute that he caused himself to be adopted by a man young enough to be his own son. No wonder therefore that Fulvia is a practised hand" - I like that expression, your own is it? Never heard it before - "at concocting such accusations. Of course, not being the consul and so not having perfect knowledge of matters of which I am completely ignorant, I cannot say definitely that this accusation is Fulvia's work. And I am alas too young to have any personal memory of her first husband. But from what I have heard of him, there is a whiff of Clodius here. A whiff of petticoats too. And anyway we all know how wisely and firmly Fulvia guides - I shall not say, governs -and advises the honourable consul." You've got to spell it out, lay it on the line, my dear. But I reckon that'll laugh 'em out of court.'
'Lovely,' I said, 'just one more refinement. I think this might be the occasion for one of my diplomatic stutters. So: "We all know Fulvia used to be married to the ignoble - I am so sorry, I mean ex-noble - Clodius". What about that?'
'Oh you're both very clever,' Agrippa said. 'It's a pity you can't ever be serious.'
'There's nothing,' I said, 'more serious than the right sort of joke in politics.'
'Well, I may be very thick, but I don't understand.'
He was very thick of course, but I soothed him. I couldn't let my Agrippa go off in that bear-mood.
He was in good company. Cicero didn't understand either. He had believed Antony's accusation and only regretted that I had 'lacked the confidence or capacity to execute such a worthy intention'. He was baffled by my response. I suppose it was too modern for him. He found the levity inappropriate. All the same, he couldn't resist chuckling over our broadside at Fulvia. There was no one he had hated more than Clodius, and he extended his hatred to Fulvia: 'a terrible woman, a harpy, a Stymphalian bird, mad for power'. His judgement was sound enough there.
As for me, I suddenly needed Cicero more than ever. Antony's credit was pricked by my riposte, which also stung him into action. He began to collect soldiers fast. At Suessa that autumn he purged his own army, then marched to Brindisium and secured three legions, the II, the IV and the Martian, which were returning from the East; his speed forestalled my own agents. On the way back north he picked up Julius' favourite legion, the Lark. He was ready now to march determinedly against Decimus Brutus in Mutina with a formidable force. Despite what I had achieved he was very close to being master of Italy, all in a few weeks. I needed to build up my credit with the traditional Republicans who feared and loathed Antony. So I wrote, passionately, to Cicero, and begged him to advise me, and to save the Republic as he had done in his youth.
How far did I fool him? We were in a sense bound together. I needed Cicero who alone could reconcile the traditionalists to me; but he needed my sword and the command I had over Julius' veterans. There are marriages like our relationship, things founded on common interest and reciprocated distrust. I could not forget his gibe: that I must be made much of, decorated and destroyed. Letters he wrote to his friend Atticus - letters which I was to read when I impounded his private papers - show how wise I was to be wary: I was a mere boy, he said; yes, he was sure of my opposition to Antony, but not of my intentions to the Republic; he saw war-clouds gathering over the Apennines. He longed for Brutus and Cassius, whose purpose was reliable.
Yes, I was right to distrust him, but he was mistaken in his judgement. I revered the Republic too, as my subsequent action in restoring it and resigning my power have proved. But I had a different sense of what was practical. I knew even then that things would have to change if we wanted them to stay the same; that Rome could only be preserved from despotism if its nobility would accept government.
* * *
That November the fog was as thick in Rome as you find it under the Alps. I arrived back at the beginning of the month and stationed three thousand men outside the city in the hill-town of Alba Longa. We held a council in my stepfather's house on the Aventine. Marcellus spoke first, then my stepfather. Both argued that we had made no real advance since the spring while Antony grew stronger.
'You are in danger,' Marcellus said, 'of falling between two stools.' 'I have always said,' Philippus insisted, 'that you can't run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. It's beyond nature.' He spoke with the authority of the man whose backside is pinned to the fence. 'You have only two real choices,' he said. 'Either throw in your lot with Antony and take whatever he is willing to grant you, or do as I've always advised: give up the whole game and retire to your vineyards and beanfields. I know which course would please your mother.'
The Council achieved nothing. Maecenas yawned through it, Agrippa glowered. He had reconciled himself to our opposition to Antony, having been shocked by the murder
accusation and angered by a gibe about 'the boy supported by the plumber's mate and the pansy'. He urged me now to call a public meeting and explain my case to the People. 'It's the Roman course,' he kept saying.
It made sense to me. Accordingly we arranged a meeting in the Temple of Castor for 10 November. The crowd's mood was uncertain. A tribune, Titus Cannutius, spoke first, attacking Antony and receiving excited applause. On the spur of the moment I jettisoned my prepared speech. I had been up all night writing it and had a fever coming on. This may have impaired my judgement. At any rate I was hardly launched before I knew I had not caught the mood. The art of public speaking consists first in sensing the audience's mood, in achieving a tacit empathy, so that you say what the crowd most deeply and unconsciously wants to hear. I failed. I attacked Antony of course, but I was too light, too mocking. I had not caught the intensity of the people's fear. They sniffed war and proscriptions on the chill tramontana that blew from Antony's northern camp. My mockery did nothing to dispel their apprehension. It made them rather distrust me: I seemed to lack the gravity and steadfastness of purpose that were needed to avert catastrophe. Even as I spoke I knew this. I suffered like an actor who finds himself in the wrong part. What had gone wrong? Later I decided I had been addressing myself to Maecenas instead of Agrippa. It was a lesson I was never to forget again. Meanwhile I plunged deeper. I heard myself launched on praise of Julius. That failed to restore the situation, for, instead of contenting myself with a recital of what he had achieved for Rome and a reminder of his generosity to the People, I heard my tongue declare my own intention 'to attain the honours of my father'. The words emerged from the fog and hung, nakedly ambitious, in the air. I sought to retrieve matters by dwelling on the indignities I had suffered from Antony. 'He has spread libels about me, he has accused me of shameful vices, he has even alleged that I was plotting his murder.' It was no good; it came over shrill. I felt my stature shrink in the imagination of those who heard me. The audience was even beginning to trickle away. I stopped in mid-sentence. Agrippa pulled me down and stood up himself.
