Death of Caesar : The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination (9781451668827)

by Strauss, Barry

  MARCH 17: THE SENATE MEETS

  Before first light on the morning of March 17, the senators began gathering for a session to start at daybreak. The Senate met in the Temple of Tellus, a Roman earth goddess. We know of no other Senate meeting in this location. The Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline was under occupation. The Temple of Concord sat at the foot of the Capitoline, in reach of Decimus’s gladiators. The Senate House of Pompey was a ghoulish thought. There were other temples in Rome, but the Temple of Tellus was on the Carinae, far from the Capitoline Hill and close to Antony’s house, so it seemed safe. Still, Lepidus made a show of strength and brought troops to the temple, where they occupied the entrances—and a good thing, too. Cinna appeared for the meeting, this time wearing his praetorian robe. When some people, including Caesar’s veterans, saw him, they promptly stoned him and chased him into a nearby house that they were about to set on fire when Lepidus and his soldiers arrived to stop them.

  By now, March 17, more of Caesar’s veterans were starting to arrive in Rome from the towns where he had settled them or from the confiscated lands they had acquired. Some came on their own initiative, others in response to calls from Antony, Lepidus, or other friends of Caesar. Honor and self-interest alike gave the soldiers grounds to strike. Caesar was their chief and their patron but now he was dead and they were afraid of losing everything. Nicolaus claims that most of the conspirators’ supporters melted away at the sight of the veteran soldiers—an exaggeration, no doubt, but the direction of the wind was beginning to shift.

  The Temple of Tellus offered reminders both of the Republic’s defenders and its enemies. It was built on land confiscated long ago from a leader of the Early Republic who was accused of wanting to be a king, and who was convicted and executed. A statue of Ceres, goddess of agriculture, paid for from his property, stood in front of the temple. So did a statue of Cicero’s brother Quintus, put up recently by Cicero. Quintus was a symbol of dangerous times—he served Caesar as a commander in Gaul and Britain before then supporting Pompey in the Civil War and finally receiving Caesar’s pardon. So much for the exterior of the Temple of Tellus—as they deliberated inside the temple, the senators looked at a map of Italy painted on an interior wall, a vivid reminder of the heart of the empire at stake.

  The Senate meeting was long and dramatic even though the assassins did not dare come down from the Capitoline. Supporters such as Cicero represented their side. What the senators decided in the end is well documented in reliable sources. The details of the debate come largely from Appian and Dio, making them plausible rather than factual. As consul, Antony set the tone of compromise from the outset. The speakers included Cicero and Caesar’s father-in-law, Piso. Debate was vigorous. It turned out that many if not most senators had been uneasy with Caesar and his kinglike ways. Some said the murderers deserved a reward for killing a tyrant, others that they should merely be thanked as public benefactors.

  Lucius Munatius Plancus made an impression as a voice of moderation. A trusted officer of Caesar in Gaul and the Civil War, Plancus was about to take up the governorship of Transalpine Gaul, but he was also close to Cicero.

  One of those who favored rewarding the assassins for killing a tyrant was Tiberius Claudius Nero. He had served Caesar as a commander in the Civil War as well as an official in Gaul, but apparently he found Caesar’s monarchical ways unbearable. (Ironically, he would later father a son who became Emperor Tiberius.)

  Neither a reward nor thanks were acceptable to Caesar’s friends, but even they were willing to give the killers amnesty on the grounds of their distinguished families. Caesar’s enemies demanded a vote on the character of Caesar, but Antony intervened. If Caesar was declared a tyrant then his administrative arrangements around the empire would be null and void. Meanwhile, anyone who held high office thanks to Caesar would have to resign. Since Caesar had arranged Rome’s public offices for the next five years, hundreds of men would have to resign, and they had no intention of doing so. Dolabella, whom Antony now recognized as co-consul, did an about-face from his support of the assassins the day before. Now that his own job was on the line, he spoke strongly against calling Caesar a tyrant or honoring the murderers.

  Meanwhile, a crowd gathered outside, and Antony and Lepidus went out to address it. “Peace!” called some and “vengeance!” cried others. Antony said that as consul he couldn’t support vengeance, tempted though he was. When one in the crowd threatened Antony, he loosened his tunic to show the armor beneath it. He used the occasion to remind people of Caesar’s clemency and of the oaths that his murderers had abused.

  The advocates of vengeance called on Lepidus to carry out their will. Before he could answer, they insisted that he come to the Roman Forum, where they could hear him better, so he did. Lepidus stood on the Speaker’s Platform and made for a sad sight. He groaned and wept there for a long time. When he recovered, he spoke. He said he remembered standing there just yesterday, as it seemed, with Caesar, and now he was forced to ask what the people wanted him to do about Caesar’s murder. Once again, cries both for peace and vengeance rang out. Like Antony, Lepidus admitted to wanting vengeance, but it was more important, he said, to spare Roman lives.

  When they returned to the Senate, Antony spoke in favor of a compromise—extending protection to the assassins and ratifying Caesar’s acts. If Appian is right, he was not subtle about the danger posed by the thousands of Caesar’s veterans who were in Rome and armed. They wanted their land and they wanted Caesar’s memory honored—or else. Antony proposed that the assassins be spared only as an act of clemency.

  Cicero gave a long speech. He summarized Rome’s current state: the Capitol was occupied, the Forum filled with arms and the whole city with fear. He agreed with Antony about the need to compromise, leaving the assassins unpunished and Caesar’s acts in force. His preferences were different no doubt, since Cicero called Caesar a king in private. What Cicero did achieve was to substitute the notion of amnesty for clemency. The word clemency was too closely tied to Caesar. He gave the senators a history lesson, citing the case of Athens where, after a bloody civil war, the people wisely passed an amnesty, and then went on to prosperity at home and victory abroad. Cicero actually used the Greek word, amnestia. He advised the senators to act in a similar spirit for the sake of moving forward.

  After the speeches, a decree passed guaranteeing the assassins immunity from prosecution while also ratifying all Caesar’s acts and decrees, but only “since it is advantageous to the state.” The friends of the assassins—surely including Cicero—insisted on this condition because anything more favorable to Caesar might sound like a condemnation of the murder. Ironically, men like Decimus, Brutus, and Cassius stood to gain from the ratification of Caesar’s acts, because it confirmed them as public officials. Meanwhile, under pressure from Caesar’s veterans, the Senate passed two more decrees confirming the new colonists who were about to take possession of their lands as well as those who already held theirs.

  It was at this meeting or one shortly afterward that Antony moved to abolish the dictatorship. The Senate agreed. So Caesar was not only Rome’s most powerful dictator ever but also its last.

  Antony’s reputation soared as people hailed him for his statesmanship. But Cicero never trusted Antony and considered this merely a tactical retreat. He believed that Antony wanted Caesar’s power and that he would push for it as soon as possible. But Cicero himself had no taste for compromise. For him, restoring the Republic meant crushing Caesar’s supporters.

  At least one person was undoubtedly happy with the compromise of March 17—Brutus. True, the assassins failed to have Caesar branded a tyrant. True, they failed to get the honor they craved. But Brutus wanted peace and moderation, and he got it. As far as he was concerned, the tyrant was dead. The Senate and the People could regain their power; Rome could move on.

  Cicero later said in private that he called for a compromise only because the liberators, as he called them, had already lost. He c
ouldn’t speak freely in that Senate meeting, he said. What choice did he have but to defend the veterans with all his power of argument, seeing that they were present and armed, and he had no bodyguard? In public though, he praised Antony for his speech in the Senate and for his goodwill.

  MARCH 17: RECONCILIATION

  That same day, March 17, the conspirators invited the Roman people to the Capitoline and a large number accepted. Brutus addressed them, speaking, it seems, either in or near the Temple of Jupiter, where the Senate often met. Appian reports what Brutus is supposed to have said. After delivering the speech, Brutus prepared it for publication. Appian’s words might reflect the published version.

  Before publication, Brutus sent a draft to Cicero for his comments. Cicero wrote privately that the speech was the height of elegance in both its sentiments and its words but that it lacked fire. Cicero wanted thunderbolts in the manner of Demosthenes, the great Greek orator who combined elegance with gravitas. Appian’s version of the speech has no thunderbolts but it is a hard-hitting speech.

  Brutus met head-on the charges against the conspirators, that by killing Caesar they violated their oaths and by occupying the Capitol they were making peace impossible. As for the latter charge, Brutus said they were forced to take refuge on the Capitoline Hill because of the sudden and unexpected attack on Cinna. That was false since the conspirators climbed the hill before that attack, but it made for a good story. Turning to the subject of Caesar, the oath to hold him sacrosanct was made under compulsion, said Brutus, so it had no force.

  Brutus painted a scathing but accurate portrait of Caesar. The defrocked governor of Gaul invaded his own country, killing a large number of its best and noblest citizens, including the strongest supporters of the Republic. He denied Romans their liberty and insisted that he, Caesar, arrange all things according to his command. He attacked the People’s Tribunes, officials whom all Romans were sworn to consider sacred and inviolable.

  Then Brutus turned to a key constituency, Caesar’s veterans. He understood their anxiety about getting or keeping the land that Caesar had promised them. Brutus protested what he called slander directed against him and the other conspirators. They would never take the veterans’ new holdings away from them. The men deserved those lands because of their glorious service in Gaul and Britain. Brutus objected only to Caesar’s practice of stealing property from his political enemies in Italy. The conspirators would now pay compensation to the former landowners from public funds but they would guarantee the veterans what they now had. They swore that by the god Jupiter himself.

  Caesar, said Brutus, purposely drove a wedge between the veterans and the former landowners to stir up trouble. Sulla behaved similarly. Brutus cleverly lumped Caesar and Sulla together, which might have reminded some in the audience that Brutus’s father was a Populist who had opposed Sulla. To sum up the speech in a phrase, Caesar was a tyrant.

  Fine words but not enough. In retrospect, Brutus’s speech was a lost opportunity. To succeed in Roman politics now, you couldn’t just let the soldiers keep what they had—you had to give them more. Caesar’s generosity was yesterday’s news. Rather than waste precious resources on his rich, landowning friends, Brutus should have lavished those resources on the soldiers. If Brutus didn’t have something new to offer the troops then somebody else would.

  If Brutus could defend himself, he might say Caesar’s veterans were a lost cause, especially in the emotional days following their fallen chief’s murder. Better to focus now on the political game in Rome, for which Brutus needed the support of former Pompey allies and others whose land had been confiscated. If he failed politically, there would be time later to buy other soldiers, less wedded to Caesar than men who needed to keep Caesar’s memory alive in order to protect their property.

  Brutus might say one other thing, too. If the Ides of March proved anything, it proved that the military did not decide everything in Roman politics. For all his military power, Caesar had lost legitimacy among large parts of the Roman people and the Senate, including some of his closest supporters. That cost him his life. So, Brutus might reply, it was vitally important to win the debate.

  But such arguments do not convince. It was worth trying to buy the loyalty of Caesar’s soldiers, if only to force Caesar’s supporters into bankruptcy if they wanted to compete to keep the soldiers loyal. And the soldiers, in the end, had a very loud voice.

  At the time Brutus’s speech appeared to be a hit. People called it fair and righteous. The conspirators seemed not only bold but also caring. The crowd promised support.

  Next came the consuls’ time to speak. They addressed the Roman people from the Speaker’s Platform, below the Capitoline, and explained what the Senate had decided. In addition to Antony and Dolabella, Cicero spoke as well. Dio says that the conspirators sent a letter down the hill in which they promised not to confiscate anyone’s property and said they considered all of Caesar’s acts valid. In other words, they reassured Caesar’s veterans that they could keep their lands. They called for harmony among all citizens and even, says Dio, swore the strongest oaths—ironic, if true, considering Brutus’s critique of oaths.

  The people now called for the conspirators to come down from the Capitoline. Brutus and Cassius agreed but only on condition that hostages were provided. And so Antony and Lepidus sent their sons up the hill. Antony’s son was a mere toddler. Hostages were not unusual as a way of safeguarding a conference in times of civil war. Their use shows just how uneasy the peace was.

  Brutus and Cassius came down. The delighted crowd broke into shouts and applause. They wouldn’t let the consuls speak until they first shook hands with their enemies, as they did. Perhaps, as Appian says, Antony and Dolabella fretted that the political initiative had passed to the conspirators. To some, it looked like the majority of Romans were glad to be rid of Caesar’s one-man rule.

  Caesar’s supporters now hosted their friends or relatives among the conspirators for dinner. Under a promise of safety, Brutus went to his brother-in-law Lepidus, while Cassius went to Antony. There followed surely the two most tense reconciliation dinners in Rome’s long history. No details survive of Brutus’s dinner at Lepidus’s, but Lepidus might have felt Caesar’s presence there, just as he felt it on the Speaker’s Platform that morning. After all, Caesar had dined at Lepidus’s only the day before his assassination. At his dinner with Cassius, Antony is said to have engaged in black humor. He asked Cassius if he had a dagger under his armpit, possibly a reference to the famous assassination of a would-be tyrant by Brutus’s ancestor, Servilius Ahala, who concealed a military dagger under his armpit. If so, it was a subtle dig at Cassius, who lacked such a family tree. Cassius supposedly responded harshly, saying that he certainly did have a dagger—and a big one—if Antony was eager to be a tyrant. But big daggers don’t fit under armpits.

  It was not difficult for educated nobles like Antony and Cassius to exchange barbs and break bread. Coming out on top of the political struggle would be harder. Restoring peace in Rome without another civil war would be the toughest task of all.

  10

  A FUNERAL TO REMEMBER

  CAESAR WAS DEAD BUT NOT buried. In a city that made political theater out of the matter of laying its noble dead to rest, this was no small point. The struggle for Rome’s future now shifted from Caesar’s acts and the assassins’ status to Caesar’s funeral and the process of mourning. The tense atmosphere was about to get even more stressful.

  MARCH 18: A PUBLIC FUNERAL?

  Cassius pressed the point the day after his dinner party at Antony’s. The Senate was meeting again in a session pushed for by Piso, Caesar’s father-in-law. Caesar had named Piso the guardian of his last will and testament. Now Piso demanded that Caesar’s will be read in public and that Caesar get a state funeral, a rare honor that had been given only to Sulla and a few others. Antony strongly supported both measures but Cassius just as strongly opposed them. So, in private, did Cicero’s friend Atticus. He pre
dicted that a public funeral would destroy the conspirators’ cause. Funerals for Roman nobles were usually private but even they were often political; public funerals packed a stronger punch still. Perhaps Atticus thought of Sulla’s splendid and intimidating military rites thirty-five years earlier. Ironically, on that occasion, Lepidus’s father had strongly opposed the public ceremony but he was outvoted. More recently, massive violence had broken out at the private funeral of the demagogue Clodius in 52 B.C. But Brutus gave in on both points. The Senate voted in favor of reading Caesar’s will in public and holding a state funeral. Antony secured the right to give the funeral oration. The same meeting confirmed Caesar’s status as a god.

  In retrospect, allowing Caesar’s funeral was a mistake, but Brutus might have said there was no choice. Popular desire for compromise demanded it. Besides, as Appian has Antony say, Caesar’s soldiers would never tolerate it if Caesar’s body were dragged, abused, and cast out like a tyrant’s corpse. How could they feel secure about their property if the man who gave it to them was treated so outrageously? Perhaps Brutus took comfort in the behavior of Lepidus’s soldiers at the Temple of Tellus the day before when they saved Cinna from a mob that included Caesar’s veterans. Perhaps he reasoned that the same soldiers would keep things from getting out of hand at Caesar’s funeral. Perhaps Lepidus even promised that. We don’t know.

  A great deal depended on the soldiers, both the legionaries and the veterans. Brutus would probably never admit that the Senate was at their mercy but, by the same token, he didn’t oppose what they wanted.