by Jack Lindsay
“It was you lost the paper,” said Barcha, “and now you’re trying to steal my wife under my very eyes.”
He snatched up a broom-handle, aimed a swipe at Blattius, and caught him across the crumpled ear. Blattius retorted by throwing back a heavy clay ornament, a rough statuette of the Praenestine Fortuna. It hit Barcha on the head and laid him out.
With a muffled scream the woman dropped beside her husband. “He’s dead,” she sobbed.
“Nonsense,” said Blattius, drinking off his own filled wine-cup and then Barcha’s. “Tickle his nose with a feather. Scratch his soles with a rusty nail. He’s shamming.”
But she continued to sob, and Blattius kneeled down at her side. He placed his hand over Barcha’s heart and could feel no pulse.
“Wake up,” he said, and shook the body. “Perhaps he’s dead after all,” he admitted, blankly. “Yes, by God, he is.” He turned to the woman. “What’ll we do with him?”
“You villain,” she answered, and beat at his face. “My loving husband — you’ve killed him — you wolf—”
The wine was fuming in the head of Blattius, and the woman’s blows awoke an interest in her. “I’ve got an idea. You’re a widow now. I’ll marry you myself. My old friend would have liked it. For his sake.”
He embraced her, taking the precaution of clapping his hand over her mouth. “No, no,” she sobbed through his fingers.
Absorbed in his own proceedings, Blattius did not hear the outer-door opened or footsteps creaking across the floor of the next room. The inner-door opened, and still he heard nothing. But when someone slapped him across the back with the flat of a sword, he was aroused from his engrossing occupation. Looking up, he saw three men with swords drawn, ugly-looking veterans.
“Is your name Barcha, or Blattius?” asked one of the men.
“My name’s Blattius,” said Blattius, indignant at being mistaken for Barcha. He was then about to remonstrate at the intrusion, when the man stabbed him carefully in the heart.
“The other fellow’s dead already,” said another of the men.
“Was he Barcha?” the third man asked the wild-eyed woman cowering in a corner, her dress hanging in tatters about her ankles as she sought frenziedly to put up her hair under a fallen fillet-band.
She nodded.
“Leave her,” said the first man, wiping his sword on a hanging. “She’s out of her head, and she answered when spoken to, and she wasn’t included in orders.”
The others signified their agreement with this reasoning, and the three trooped out.
The woman remained cowering in the corner, watching the corpses out of the corner of her eye. Then she said, “Go away. I’m not married to you.” She shrank back, her arm over her eyes; but nothing moved. Growing braver, she rose, tiptoed across to the side of Blattius, and touched him. Still nothing moved. She kicked him, and scuttled back to her corner. Still nothing moved. Boldly she approached again, and stood over him, kicking and hitting.
“Go away, won’t you? O you’re a bad man.” Her voice had a hard, timbreless, childish tone, and she went on, almost coyly, “Go away before my husband sees you, or he’ll kill you.”
*
Next day the more respectable friends of Antonius received a message that he would like to consult them on a very serious matter. They assembled at his house and found him in a grave mood. He had, he informed them, discovered a plot of Octavianus against his life, and would produce full evidence.
Before he spoke further, Lucius entered with troubled face and took him aside. Antonius then finished his speech confusedly, saying that the evidence was irrefutable and that he would produce it on some future occasion. Then he sat down abruptly.
The gathering realised that he was trying to put on them the responsibility for a far-reaching decision. That was all very well; but he couldn’t expect them to advise a prosecution when he had produced no evidence. One of the men suggested that it was hard to speak definitely without having heard the evidence.
Antonius agreed, and dismissed the gathering affably. When the guests were gone, he turned on Lucius. “So your fine fellows are dead. Very opportunely.”
“They were murdered, and a crackbrained woman found with them. I don’t suppose she did it. Anyhow they’re dead. Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t my fault.”
“So the darling boy goes free still,” said Antonius, bitterly. “I’ll tell you where I do blame you others. That’s in getting rid of young Quintus Cicero. He was the kind that would sincerely swear to anything after being told it when drunk.”
“Your filthy friends can do as they like,” said Fulvia, who had entered, “except meddle with my daughter. I’ve never forgotten — and neither have you — how you tried to seduce me when I was the wife of your friend Clodius. He acted decently anyway, and you never forgave him for what he said. It shows what you’ve always thought of me. But you shan’t include my daughter in your thoughts.”
“Of course, she’s as chaste as a cut sparrow,” said Antonius, retreating before Fulvia. “O don’t come making tiger’s eyes at me. It won’t work.” He turned to Lucius. “But this failure doesn’t matter. I’ll smash pretty-boy yet. I shan’t go to the province before I’ve done it.”
“I want some money,” demanded Fulvia. “I want to buy a ranching estate in Appulia.”
“Go and take the coins,” snarled Antonius. “Don’t you keep the Treasury under your bed nowadays? Take care you don’t mistake if for the chamberpot. By Hercules, I can’t stand this petty plotting and bibble-babble. I’ll burn Rome down if something doesn’t happen soon.”
*
Five days later Antonius and Fulvia started from Rome to meet the legions that were due at Brundisium. That night there was a meeting of the friends of Octavianus, extreme conservatives, who believed he had truly been implicated in a plot to murder Antonius. Marcellus, who was to marry Octavia in a few weeks, continued his efforts to kindle Octavianus. He was an aristocrat of the bitter, unyielding type, charming in his manners; and Octavianus had no difficulty in seeing through his efforts, but still liked him. That was the distracting thing. Octavianus liked all these men; he sympathised both with the people’s demand for strong and fatherly government, and with the conservative effort to hold intact the devotional spirit of the race in all its disciplined purity. Even Antonius he hated only in the moments when fear crept over his skin. He had no wish to make a bloody offering at the shrine of his dead grand-uncle, and could not believe that the ghost of Caesar would wish it. Comfortable in his home-circle, he looked on the faces of his mother and his friends, and wondered why he could not drop his inheritance when it involved him in such a false position; and yet drop it he could not.
“You’re the only person who can withstand the disruptive forces,” said Marcellus, eagerly.
“I have nothing behind me.”
“Every citizen of goodwill is on the side of the man who seeks to restore peace. The soldiers will follow your name.”
There was much in what he said, but it rang false. Octavianus knew where the flaw lay. The conservatives couldn’t abandon the Liberators; yet any man who relied on the soldiers for support must sooner or later repeal the amnesty. Still, perhaps Marcellus was right. Very careful management might carry them through. If a stable State was strongly restored, the blood-clamour of the populace would die down. If the soldiers were well-paid and well-settled, if the crowd got its largess, the subversive cries would cease. But once a leader came right out into action as things stood, there would be a terrific pull exerted on his effort to keep a balance; only extreme luck or skill could bear him on till the moment of reorganisation.
“You see the trick Antonius played. There’s more to come. Either you fight or go under.”
That was true.
The conversation drifted excitably on. Octavianus could not feel convinced when he knew these men were only seeking to use him to bolster up their class privileges. He had no hatred of that class; he loved the b
etter side of its tradition; he wanted everyone to be satisfied; but his inheritance drew him on. He would have to fight Antonius.
“You know that as soon as Antonius musters his legions outside Rome, it’s the end of you and the end of the State. Your destiny is bound up with the State’s.”
Octavianus looked up and caught the eyes of Agrippa. Friendship was strength.
“I shan’t be caught,” he said, quietly, terrified of his words, terrified of the course of action into which he would be compelled by his words.
“What are you going to do then?”
“I’ll recruit the veterans. I’ll win the legions away from Antonius.”
He wanted to add: My name is Caesar — but forbore to do so in the face of these men who had hated Caesar. They had advised him to the course. So be it. If it turned out to their own ruin in the end, on their own heads be it. He would do what he had said.
Marcellus smiled. It wasn’t hard to influence this mild-mannered young student who had had the name of Caesar thrust upon him and who was ready to take the onus of such a complex job as that of opposing Antonius. Marcellus felt himself a very clever politician.
Octavianus set off southwards with his servants and clients, loading all his money on mules. He was going to Capua to sell some estates for his mother, he said, and to make a start paying Caesar’s legacies. Since Antonius would not release Caesar’s funds, Octavianus would sell his own considerable property inherited from his father. But as soon as he reached Capua he sent out his agents to collect veterans.
In the second week of October the four legions from Macedonia arrived at Brundisium with a large body of Gallic and Thracian cavalry. Octavianus would need a lot of men to offset this acquisition of Antonius. But friends of his, to whom he had written in Macedonia, had already talked among the legions; and when Antonius, haranguing the troops on arrival, mentioned a donative of 400 sesterces for each man, there was an outburst of jeers, laughter, and howls. The men considered themselves withdrawn from an impending and lucrative Parthian War for mean Gallic quarters, and expected compensation.
To Antonius, however, in his strained mood the signs of mutinous spirit were read far more darkly than the facts warranted. Tales reached Rome that he had summoned the centurions blacklisted for aiding the breaches of discipline, that he had had them executed in the courtyard of his house, and that Fulvia had pressed so close the blood spattered her dress and face. Dissatisfaction was increased among the legions by agents from Octavianus offering a donative of 2000 sesterces and talking of Caesar’s son.
Octavianus himself in Campania now had about 3000 men; but he was aghast at his action, which amounted to an act of war by a private citizen against the legally appointed consul. Worse, he could find no reason in his heart for the action except fear of his own safety. He had no plan, no political theory. In desperation he wrote to Cicero, who had retired to Puteoli to compose a lengthy denunciation of Antonius for circulation among friends and to finish his treatise On Duty. Letter after letter he wrote, several in one day, imploring the aid of the old orator, the theorist of the perfect Roman State. What did it matter that Cicero had been Caesar’s foe? Octavianus was frightened and conscience-stricken. He must have a goal, an explanation, a justification.
Cassius had sailed away for the East. Antonius knew what that meant. The struggle was nearing. The conservatives were at last measuring their strength; they were bidding Decimus Brutus stand fast; and they were able to use the pestiferous Octavianus to cloud the issues among the veterans. The only hope of Antonius was to simplify the issue, to make himself the manifest champion and avenger of Caesar. Nothing else could eliminate the boy.
He wrote to Dolabella, bidding him leave for Syria. Cassius must be cut off.
Then he himself set off on his march to Rome with one of the Macedonian legions and the Gallic Lark, sending the other legions up the coast-road to Cisalpine Gaul. He would convoke the Senate and have Octavianus named as the rebel that he now undoubtedly was.
*
Would she go? Cytheris looked again and again at the note and tried to find some fault with the wording, something to quarrel about. Dolabella had written: “I leave tomorrow for the East — perhaps to die, for it means war. Come and spend the night with me.”
She wanted to go. Yes, face it honestly. She wanted to go, but didn’t like deceiving Gallus. Tell him the truth then. And make him miserable, to escape her own qualms, perhaps ending everything. She didn’t want to go as much as all that. But still she wanted to go. Dolabella was a dear, and she couldn’t let him down.
Why hadn’t she kept true to her knowledge? No one man could serve. Why couldn’t she be truthful and tell Gallus that simple fact? “I’m yours when you want me. But you mustn’t ask where I go when I’m not at home.”
He was the poet of the hour now. She had made him that with her recitations of his verse. He had the entry to all kinds of houses — places where she couldn’t enter, except perhaps for a few moments during dinner, very distinctly a performer, herded away as soon as she’d done her turn. That was all wrong. If he wanted her so entirely, why didn’t he marry her? Of course it would ruin his career; but he didn’t talk of careers when he told her how he loved her. He talked only of wanting her. So he was a liar. He deceived her. Her career was to discover her beauty and intelligence in the mirroring embraces of the men that she liked. He wanted her to drop that, but wouldn’t drop his own career. With masculine hypocrisy he took it for granted that his social ambition was something worthy, her personal need something beastly. Well, it wasn’t. It was a thing of delight. She loved Gallus the best, and yet never did he take her with such tact and abandoned sweetness as Dolabella would take her this very night.
She had decided. She didn’t want to marry Gallus. She’d refuse him if he asked. But he was a hypocrite, a deceiver, until he asked. Until he asked, she’d feel herself free to deceive him in return. He couldn’t legally marry her as she wasn’t a full citizen, but he could set up house with her and treat her socially as a wife. It would be marriage.
Blithely she stood before the silver mirror held by a girl of bronze. She clasped her hands behind her head and took a deep breath that raised her breasts and made her feel as if a lover was pressing against them. Gallus would never ask her to marry him. She was a free woman.
When Gallus called that evening, he found a note to say that she was meeting a friend and he wasn’t to wait for her; she wasn’t feeling well.
*
Sending out Edicts as he came, Antonius approached Rome. It did not worry him that the Edicts were undignified, declaring the great-grandfather of Octavianus to have been a rope-maker, his grandfather a usurer, and his father an election-racketeer, and abusing Octavianus himself as Caesar’s catamite, who owed his adoption to vice. The days of the boy were numbered. Antonius announced that the Senate must meet on the 24th to consider the situation.
But Octavianus had received news from his spies and set out first. He arrived at Rome on the 10th and stationed his 3000 veterans outside the walls near the Temple of Mars. He saw at once that he had gone too far. The senators were ready to congratulate him privately, but had no intention of daring Antonius and his superior forces. Even the 3000 veterans were wavering, unable to follow what was going on; it looked as if they’d be named as public enemies.
Antonius sent his two legions to Tibur and came on to Rome. The session had been postponed till the 28th, to give him time to encamp his men; he wanted also to confirm their attachment to him, for he had learned the agents of Octavianus were hard at work. When he had made sure of a firm basis, he returned to complete the crushing of the boy, whose 3000 men were rapidly deserting.
But though the legions at Tibur had been purged of discontent, the others, lacking the presence of Antonius and angry from the events of Brundisium, were easier material for the agents. No sooner had Antonius reached Rome than he heard that the Martian legion on its march northwards had rebelled and gone off to Alba, de
claring for the Son of Caesar. At once Antonius rode headlong to Alba, only to have the gates shut in his face. In a fury he hastened back to Rome, and there the news met him on the daybreak of the 28th that the 4th legion had followed the example of the Martian.
Octavianus was saved.
When the Senate met, Antonius merely announced that Lepidus had successfully pacified the West and thereby merited a Thanksgiving. Then he left the House.
Everything had happened so quickly that he left without calling for a vote on the unfilled provincial appointments of the next year. It would be madness to leave them empty, for the conservatives to seize. So, contrary to custom, he hurriedly called a second session for that evening; and the gaps in appointment were filled. Gaius Antonius got Macedonia, and Africa was given to Calvisius, a sound Caesarian.
Antonius, returning home, collected those of his supporters who still remained at Rome, and marched them off to Tibur. Then he drank himself blind over the sudden collapse of all his schemes.
*
He awoke in a haze of exasperated depression. He felt that he had lost all grip, and wanted to end the struggle. Everything could be patched up yet; he wouldn’t start a war out of mere pique. His hatred of Octavianus was wearing thin, picked to shreds by the riddling fears that infested his mind. He still had contempt for the lad, but his passion was gone. He felt sick and wanted peace.
A deputation of the weightier and more impartial senators awaited him. They argued gravely for a truce. There was no reason why all parties should not work together. It was clear that, if necessary, they would sacrifice Octavianus, who had the most anomalous position of all the leaders.
When the deputation went, Antonius sat with his head between his hands. Then he spoke:
“I’m coming to a composition with the Senate.”
“You’re doing no such thing,” said Fulvia. “You’re going to fight Decimus Brutus.”
