The Ides of March

by Thornton Wilder

  And having reread what I wrote I destroyed it.

  I destroyed it not for Cicero’s reasons—not because the absence of a state religion would drive superstition into clandestine forms and still baser practices (that is already taking place); not because so sweeping a measure would disrupt the social order and leave the people in despair and dismay like sheep in a snowstorm. In certain orders of reform, the dislocations caused by gradual change are almost as great as those caused by a total and drastic alteration. No, it was not the possible repercussions of the move which arrested my hand and will; it was something in and of my self.

  In myself I was not certain that I was certain.

  Am I sure that there is no mind behind our existence and no mystery anywhere in the universe? I think I am. What joy, what relief there would be, if we could declare so with complete conviction. If that were so I could wish to live forever. How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own vitals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives.

  You and I long since decided that the Gods do not exist. Do you remember the day that with finality we agreed upon that decision and resolved to explore all its consequences—sitting on the cliff in Crete, throwing pebbles into the sea, counting porpoises? We took a vow never to allow our minds to offer entrance to any doubt upon this matter. With what boyish lightheartedness we concluded that the soul was extinguished at death. [The English language cannot reproduce the force of this phrase in Caesar’s Latin where the very cadence expresses a poignancy of renunciation and regret. The recipient of the letter understood that Caesar was referring to the death of his daughter Julia, the wife of Pompey, the overwhelming loss of his life. Mamilius Turrinus was with him when the news of her death reached Caesar’s headquarters in Brittany.]

  I thought I had not relapsed from all the strictness of these assertions. There is only one way, however, to know what one knows and that is to risk one’s convictions in an act, to commit them in a responsibility. In drawing up the edict last night and in foreseeing the consequences that would ensue, I was driven to examine myself most strictly. All the consequences I would most gladly face, certain that the truth would ultimately fortify the world and all that are in it, but only if I were certain that I was certain.

  Some last hesitation arrests my hand.

  I must be certain that in no corner of my being there lingers the recognition that there is a possibility of a mind in and behind the universe which influences our minds and shapes our actions. If I acknowledge the possibility of one such mystery, all the other mysteries come flooding back: there are the Gods who have taught us what is excellent and who are watching us; there are our souls which are infused in us at birth and which outlive our death; there are the rewards and punishments which furnish a meaning to our slightest action.

  Yes, my friend, I am not accustomed to irresolution and I am irresolute. You know how little I am given to reflection; whatever judgments I arrive at I arrive at I know not how, but instantaneously; I am not adept at speculation, and since the age of sixteen I have regarded philosophy with impatience, as a tempting but fruitless exercise of the mind and as a flight from the obligations of immediate living.

  It seems to me that there are four realms in which, with dread, I see in my life and in the life about me, the possibility of this mystery:

  The erotic—have we not explained away too easily all that accompanies the fires that populate the world? Lucretius may be right and our jesting world wrong. I seem to have known all my life, but to have refused to acknowledge that all, all love is one, and that the very mind with which I ask these questions is awakened, sustained, and instructed only by love.

  Great poetry—poetry is indeed the principal channel by which all that most weakens man has entered the world; there he finds his facile consolations and the lies that reconcile him to ignorance and inertia; I count myself second to no man in my hatred of all poetry save the best—but great poetry, is that merely the topmost achievement of the man’s powers or is that a voice from beyond man?

  Thirdly, a moment that accompanies my illness and whose intimation of greater knowledge and happiness I cannot hastily dismiss. [This sentence is evidence of the unbounded confidence that Caesar felt in his correspondent. Caesar never permitted any reference to be made to his attacks of epilepsy.]

  And finally, I cannot deny that at times I am aware that my life and my services to Rome seem to have been shaped by a power beyond myself. It may well be, my friend, that I am the most irresponsible of irresponsible men, capable long since of bringing upon Rome all the ills that a state can suffer, but for the fact that I was the instrument of a higher wisdom that selected me for my limitations and not for my strength. I do not reflect, and it may be that that instantaneous operation of my judgment is no other than the presence of the daimon within me, which is a stranger to me, and which is the love which the Gods bear to Rome and which my soldiers worship and the people pray to in the morning.

  A number of days ago I wrote you in arrogance; I said that, respecting no man’s good opinion, I was not interested in any man’s advice. I come to you for counsel. Think over these things and give me all your thought when I see you in April.

  In the meantime I scan all that passes without and within me, and particularly love, poetry, and destiny. I now see that I have been putting these questions all my life, but one does not know what one knows, or even what one wishes to know, until one is challenged and must lay down a stake. I am challenged; Rome is requiring some new enlargement of me. My time grows short.

  IX Cassia, wife of Quintus Lentulus Spinther, from her villa at Capua, to the Reverend Maid, Domitilla Appia, Clodia’s cousin, a Vestal Virgin.

  [September 10.]

  For the sake of our long friendship, my dear Domitilla, I feel I must write you at once about a decision I have taken. I intend to ask for the disbarment of Claudilla [Clodia Pulcher] from the Mysteries of the Good Goddess.

  I realize all the gravity of what I shall do.

  Claudilla has just stayed at my house for three days on her journey from Baiae to Rome and some events have taken place which I feel I must recount to you in detail.

  On arriving she showered us with endearments. She has always pretended that she loved me, my husband, and my children; she has assumed that we love her; but I have long known that she has never loved any woman, not even her mother, nor any man either.

  As you know, to receive Claudilla as a house guest is like receiving a proconsul returning from his province. She arrives with three friends, ten servants, and a dozen outriders.

  Now my husband and I have long known that any view of another’s happiness is repugnant to your cousin. In her presence we may not exchange understanding glances; we may not caress our children; we may not point out improvements to the villa; we may not take pleasure in the works of art which my husband has collected. The immortal Gods, however, have given us much happiness and we are not clever at dissembling, even when the laws of hospitality enjoin us to appear contentious and discontented.

  Claudilla is always at her best at beginnings. The first day she was gracious to all. Even my husband conceded that she talked brilliantly. After dinner we played “portraits” and she did, he said, the best portrait of the Dictator that could conceivably be made.

  Now the things I am going to tell you may not seem as decisive to you as they do to me, several of them may even seem to you to be trifles.

  The second day she decided to create havoc about her. That she insulted me I pass over; that she made my husband unhappy fills me again this moment with rage. My husband takes a great interest in genealogy and great pride in the achievement of the Lenrulus-Spinther family. She began making fun of them: “Oh, my dear Quintus, you can’t really, etc. . . . a few mayors up in the Etruscan country . . . but no one actually believes they were even noticed by Ancus Martius . . . a respectable family, of course, Quintus.”
I don’t know anything about such things; of course, she has everybody’s cousin’s name right back to the Trojan War. She knew she was lying and she just did it to poison my husband, which it did.

  Without telling us, she had invited the poet Gaius Valerius Catullus to join her here. We were glad to see him, particularly my children, though we would much have preferred to see him alone. When she’s around he’s either in the heavens or in hell. This time he was in hell, and soon we all were.

  Now, Domitilla, I do not stay awake to find out what visits my guests may be paying in one another’s rooms; but I do not like to feel that my house has been selected to be the scene of a cruel indignity. Since your cousin invited Valerius Catullus to join her here I was ready to assume that she looked favorably on a love which has been sufficiently widely celebrated in his verses which I think are very beautiful. But apparently not: she chose my home in which not only to bar the door to him but to bar herself in with another man—that wretched little poet Verus. My husband was awakened during the night by noises in the stable and there was the poet borrowing a horse in order to depart at once for Rome. He was beside himself with rage; he tried to apologize, he stammered; he sobbed. Finally my husband took him to our old villa across the road and watched over him until morning. Even a Vestal, dear Domitilla, can understand how shameful, how derogatory to our whole sex, her behavior was—how contemptible. The next morning I spoke to her about it. She looked at me coldly and said: “It is quite simple, Cassia. I will not permit any man, any man, to think he has any rights over me whatever. I am a completely free woman. Catullus insists he has a claim on me. I had to show him quickly that I did not recognize any such claim. That is all.”

  I could think of no answer then, but I have thought of a thousand since. I should have trusted to my impulse and have asked her to leave the house at once.

  As we were finishing dinner that afternoon my children came into the court with their tutor, visiting the altars for their sunset prayers. You know how devout my husband is and all our household. Claudilla, in their hearing, began scoffing at the salt ceremony and the libations. I could endure it no longer. I stood up and asked everyone else to leave the court. When we were alone I told her to take her party and go. There is an inn four miles up the road. I told her that I would apply for her disbarment from the Mysteries.

  She looked at me a long time in silence.

  I said: “I see you do not even see wherein you have been offensive. You may leave in the morning, if you prefer,” and I left her.

  In the morning she was most correct. She even apologized to my husband for any words which may have appeared unsuitable. But I have not changed my mind.

  X Clodia, on the road to Rome, to Caesar.

  [From the Inn at the 20th Milepost, south of Rome.]

  [September 10.]

  [This letter is in Greek.]

  Son of Romulus, descendant of Aphrodite:

  I have received the expression of your contempt and of your profound regret that you cannot be present at my brother’s dinner. It appears that you are engaged on that afternoon with the Spanish Commission. This you tell to me who know—who better?—that Caesar does what he wishes and that what he wishes is accepted without demur by the Spanish Commission and by the trembling proconsuls.

  You have long since made it clear to me that I may never see you alone and that I may never come to your house.

  You despise me.

  I understand that.

  But you have a responsibility toward me. You made me what I am. I am your creature. You, a monster, have made me a monster.

  My claim has nothing to do with love. Beyond love, far beyond love, I am your creature. In order not to importune you with this thing they call love I have done what I have done: I have brutified myself. You who understand everything (for all your pretense at being noble and blank) you understand that. Or does your public and ostentatious stupidity forbid you to know the things that you know?

  Tiger! Monster! Hyrcanian Tiger!

  You have a responsibility toward me.

  You have a responsibility toward me.

  You taught me all that I know; but you stopped short. You withheld the essential. You taught me that the world has no mind. When I said—that you remember and why I said it—that life was horrible, you said no, that life was neither horrible nor beautiful. That living had no character at all and had no meaning. You said that the universe did not know that men were living in it.

  You do not believe that. I know, I know that there is one thing more that you have to tell me. Anyone can see that you behave as though something for you holds reason, holds meaning. What is it?

  I could endure my life if I knew that you were wretched also; but I see that you are not so and that means that you have one more thing to tell me—that you must tell me.

  Why do you live? Why do you work? Why do you smile? A friend—if I can be said to have friends—has described to me your behavior at the house of Cato. It seems that you were gracious, that you charmed the company, that you set it laughing, that you talked interminably with—who can believe it?—Sempronia Metella. Can it be possible that you live by vanity? Is it enough for you that you hear the City now and—beyond the City—your future biographers describing you as magnanimous or charming? Your life did not use to be a series of postures before a mirror.

  Caius, Caius, tell me what to do. Tell me what I must know. Once, let me talk to you, let me listen to you.

  Later.

  No, I will not be unjust to you, though you are unjust to me.

  It was not you alone who made me what I am now, though you completed the work.

  It was that monstrous thing that life did to me. You are the only person living that knows my story—that is a responsibility. Such another thing life did to you also.

  X-A Caesar to Clodia.

  [Not by return messenger, but some four days later.]

  My wife, my aunt, and I are coming to your dinner; do not speak of it until you receive my formal acceptance.

  You write me of things I told you. Either you are deceiving yourself or me, or your memory is faulty. I hope that arising from the conversation of your guests—who include, I am told, Cicero and Catullus—some matters will be touched on that you have known, but have forgotten.

  The degree of my admiration for what you were is known to you. Its restoration, like so much else, is in your power. I have always found it difficult to be indulgent to those who despise or condemn themselves.

  XI Caesar to Pompeia.

  [September 13. From his offices, at eight in the morning.]

  I hope, my dear wife, that you have thought over the injustice of your charges against me this morning. I ask your pardon for having left the house this morning without answering your last question.

  It makes me very unhappy to refuse you anything. It makes me doubly unhappy to refuse you the same request over and over again, refurnishing reasons which on earlier occasions you have told me you understood, you agreed with, and you accepted. Since it is these repetitions which try my patience and do an injustice to your intelligence, let me put some of them down in writing.

  I can do nothing for your cousin. The record of his cruelty and corruption on the Island of Corsica becomes more widely known every day. It may develop into an enormous public scandal; my enemies may finally render me responsible and it may take a great deal of time which I should be giving to other things. As I told you, I can give him any post, within reason, in the Army; I will not appoint him within five years to any administrative position.

  I repeat that it is most unsuitable that you attend the ceremonies at the Temple of Serapis. I know that many remarkable things take place there for which it is not easy to furnish an explanation, and I know that the Egyptian rites arouse strong emotion and send the votaries away in states of mind which they and you describe as “happier” and “better.” Believe me, my dear wife, I have studied them closely. Those Egyptian cults offer particular dangers to ou
r Roman natures. We are active; we believe that even the smaller decisions of the daily life have a moral importance; that our relation to the Gods is strictly related to our conduct. I have known women of your position in Egypt. From time to time they visit their temples in order to prepare their souls for immortality after death; they roll on the floor and howl; they take long imagined journeys during which they are “washing their souls” and passing from stage to stage of divinity. The next day they return to their homes and are again cruel to their servants, deceitful to their husbands, avaricious, noisy and quarrelsome, self-indulgent, and totally indifferent to the misery in which the mass of the people of their country live. We Romans know that our souls are engaged in this life, and the journeys they make and the washing we give them are nothing more than our duties, our friendships, and our sufferings if we have them.

  As to Clodia’s dinner I ask you to trust my judgment. In these other matters I am willing to furnish arguments; I could do it in this case also, but this letter is already long and we both have more profitable things to do than to rehearse the history of that couple. They might have become outstanding friends of the Roman good, as their ancestors were, instead of laughingstocks to the people and a consternation to patriots. This they know well. They do not expect us to accept their invitations.

  You tell me that my appointees are everywhere enriching themselves at the expense of the State. I was surprised this morning to hear you say this. I do not think, my dear Pompeia, that it is a wife’s business to taunt her husband with inefficiency or reprehensible neglect on the basis of rumors she has picked up in general conversation. It is more suitable that she ask him for an explanation of charges which affect her honor as much as they affect his. If you lay before me an example of such profiteering I shall give you an answer. It could not be a short one, for I would have to open your eyes to the difficulties inherent in administering a world, the extent to which one must compromise with the greed of capable men, to the antagonism always present in one’s subordinates, to the differences that distinguish conquered lands from those long incorporated in the Republic, and to the methods one employs in assisting headstrong men to plunge to their own ruin.