Dictator:

by Robert Harris

  Maecenas whispered to me, ‘Does anyone want to know his opinion?’ and he bit on his napkin to stifle his laughter.

  Octavian said mildly, ‘And what leads you to that opinion, Father?’

  ‘Well, if I may speak frankly, my boy, you can call yourself Caesar all you like but that doesn’t make you Caesar, and the closer you get to Rome the greater the danger will be. Do you really think Antony is just going to hand over all these millions? And why would Caesar’s veterans follow you rather than Antony, who commanded a wing at Pharsalus? Caesar’s name is just a target on your back. You’ll be killed before you’ve gone fifty miles.’

  Hirtius and Pansa nodded in agreement.

  Agrippa said quietly, ‘No, we can get him to Rome safely enough.’

  Octavian turned to Cicero. ‘And what do you think?’

  Cicero dabbed carefully at his mouth with his napkin before replying. ‘Just four months ago your adopted father was dining precisely where you are now and assuring me he had no fear of death. The truth is, all our lives hang by a thread. There is no safety anywhere, and no one can predict what will happen. When I was your age, I dreamed only of glory. What I wouldn’t have given to be in your place now!’

  ‘So you would go to Rome?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Stand for election.’

  Philippus said, ‘But he’s only eighteen. He’s not even old enough to vote.’

  Cicero continued: ‘As it happens, there’s a vacancy for a tribune: Cinna was killed by the mob at Caesar’s funeral – they got the wrong man, poor devil. You should propose yourself to fill his place.’

  Octavian said, ‘But surely Antony would never allow it?’

  Cicero replied, ‘That doesn’t matter. Such a move would show your determination to continue Caesar’s policy of championing the people: the plebs will love it. And when Antony opposes you – as he must – he’ll be seen as opposing them.’

  Octavian nodded slowly. ‘That’s not a bad idea. Perhaps you should come with me?’

  Cicero laughed. ‘No, I’m retiring to Greece to study philosophy.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  After the dinner, when the guests were preparing to leave, I overheard Octavian say to Cicero, ‘I meant what I said. I would value your wisdom.’

  Cicero shook his head. ‘I fear my loyalties lie in the other direction, with those who struck down your adopted father. But if ever there was a possibility of your reconciling with them – well then, in such circumstances, in the interests of the state, I would do all I could to help you.’

  ‘I’m not opposed to reconciliation. It’s my legacy I want, not vengeance.’

  ‘Can I tell them that?’

  ‘Of course. That’s why I said it. Goodbye. I shall write to you.’

  They shook hands. Octavian stepped out into the road. It was a spring evening, not yet entirely dark, no longer raining either but with moisture still in the air. To my surprise, standing silently in the blue gloom across the street were more than a hundred soldiers. When they saw Octavian they set up the same din I had heard at Caesar’s funeral, banging their swords against their shields in acclamation: it turned out these were some of the Dictator’s veterans from the Gallic wars, settled nearby on Campanian land. Octavian went over with Agrippa to talk to them. Cicero watched for a moment, then ducked back inside to avoid being seen.

  When the door was shut I asked, ‘Why did you urge him to go to Rome? Surely the last thing you want is to encourage another Caesar?’

  ‘If he goes to Rome he’ll cause problems for Antony. He’ll split their faction.’

  ‘And if his adventure succeeds?’

  ‘It won’t. Philippus is right. He’s a nice boy, and I hope he survives, but he’s no Caesar – you only have to look at him.’

  Nevertheless, he was sufficiently intrigued by Octavian’s prospects to postpone his departure for Athens. Instead he conceived a vague idea of attending the Senate meeting Antony had summoned for the first of June. But when we arrived in Tusculum towards the end of May, everyone advised him not to go. Varro sent a letter warning that there would be murder. Hirtius agreed. He said, ‘Even I’m not going, and no one’s ever accused me of disloyalty to Caesar. But there are too many old soldiers in the streets too quick to draw their swords – look what happened to Cinna.’

  Octavian, meanwhile, had arrived in the city unscathed and sent Cicero a letter:

  From G. Julius Caesar Octavianus to M. Tullius Cicero, greetings.

  I wanted you to know that yesterday Antony finally agreed to see me at his house: the one that used to be Pompey’s. He kept me waiting for more than an hour – a silly tactic that I believe shows his weakness rather than mine. I began by thanking him for looking after my adopted father’s property on my behalf, invited him to take from it whatever trinkets he desired as keepsakes, but asked him to hand over the rest to me at once. I told him I needed the money to make an immediate cash disbursement to three hundred thousand citizens in accordance with my father’s will. The rest of my expenses I asked to be met by a loan from the public treasury. I also told him of my intention to stand for the vacant tribunate and asked him for evidence of the various edicts he claims to have discovered in my father’s papers.

  He replied with great indignation that Caesar had not been king and had not bequeathed me control of the state; that accordingly he did not have to give an account of his public acts to me; that as far as the money went, my father’s effects were not as great as all that, and that he had left the public treasury bankrupt so there was nothing to be got from there either; as for the tribunate, my candidacy would be illegal and was out of the question.

  He thinks because I am young he can intimidate me. He is wrong. We parted on bad terms. Among the people, however, and among my father’s soldiers my reception has been as warm as Antony’s was cold.

  Cicero was delighted at the enmity between Antony and Octavian and showed the letter to several people: ‘You see how the cub tweaks the old lion’s tail?’ He asked me to go to Rome on his behalf on the first of June and report back what happened in the Senate meeting.

  I found Rome, as everyone had warned us, teeming with soldiers, mostly Caesar’s veterans whom Antony had summoned to the city to serve as his private army. They stood around on the street corners in sullen, hungry groups, intimidating anyone who looked as though they might be wealthy. As a result, the Senate was very thinly attended, and there was no one brave enough to oppose Antony’s most audacious proposal: that Decimus should be removed from the governorship of Nearer Gaul and that he, Antony, should be awarded both of the Gallic provinces, together with command of their legions, for the next five years – exactly the same concentration of power that had set Caesar on the road to the dictatorship. As if this were not enough, he also announced that he had summoned home the three legions based in Macedonia that Caesar had planned to use in the Parthian campaign and placed these under his own command as well. Dolabella did not object, as might have been expected, because he was to receive Syria, also for five years; Lepidus was bought off with Caesar’s old position of pontifex maximus. Finally, as this arrangement left Brutus and Cassius without their anticipated provinces, he arranged for them to be offered instead a couple of Pompey’s old corn commissionerships – one in Asia, the other in Sicily; they would have no power at all; it was a humiliation; so much for reconciliation.

  The bills were approved by the half-empty Senate and Antony took them to the Forum the next day to be voted on by the people. The inclement weather continued. There was even a thunderstorm halfway through proceedings – such a terrible omen that the assembly should have been dismissed at once. But Antony was an augur: he claimed to have seen no lightning and ruled that the vote could go ahead, and by dusk he had what he wanted. There was no sign of Octavian. As I turned to leave the assembly I saw Fulvia watching from a litter. She was soaked from the rain but did not seem to notice, so engrossed wa
s she in her husband’s apotheosis. I made a mental note to myself to warn Cicero that a woman who hitherto had been nothing more than a nuisance to him had just become a far more dangerous enemy.

  The following morning I went to see Dolabella. He took me to the nursery and showed me Cicero’s grandson, the infant Lentulus, who had just learnt to take a few wobbling steps. It was now more than fifteen months since Tullia’s death, yet still Dolabella had not repaid her dowry. At Cicero’s request I began to broach the subject (‘Do it politely, mind you: I can’t afford to antagonise him’), but Dolabella cut me off at once.

  ‘It’s out of the question, I’m afraid. You can give him this instead in full and final settlement. It’s worth far more than money.’ And he threw across the table an imposing legal document with black ribbons and a red seal. ‘I’ve made him my legate in Syria. Don’t worry, tell him – he doesn’t have to do anything. But it means he can leave the country honourably and gives him immunity for the next five years. My advice, tell him, is that he should get out as soon as he can. Things are worsening by the day and we can’t be held responsible for his safety.’

  I took the message back to Tusculum and relayed it verbatim to Cicero, who was sitting in the garden beside Tullia’s grave. He studied the warrant for his legateship. ‘So this little piece of paper has cost me a million sesterces? Does he really imagine that waving this in the face of some illiterate half-drunk legionary would deter him from sticking his sword in my throat?’ He had already heard what had happened at the Senate and in the public assembly, but wanted me to recite my precis of the speeches. At the end he said, ‘So there was no opposition?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Did you see Octavian at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No – of course not – why would you? Antony has the money, the legions and the consulship. Octavian has nothing but a borrowed name. As for us, we daren’t even show our faces in Rome.’ He slumped against the wall in despair. ‘I tell you something, Tiro, between you and me – I’m starting to wish the Ides of March had never happened.’

  There was to be a family conference with Brutus and Cassius on the seventh day of June in Antium to decide their next steps: he had been invited and he asked me to accompany him.

  We set off early, descending the hills just as the sun came up, and crossed the marshy land in the direction of the coast. The mist was rising. I remember the croaking of the bullfrogs, the cries of the gulls; Cicero barely spoke. Just before midday we reached Brutus’s villa. It was a fine old place built right on the shoreline with steps cut into the rocks leading down to the sea. The gate was blocked by a strong guard of gladiators; others patrolled the grounds; more were visible walking on the beach – I guess there must have been a hundred armed men in all. Brutus was waiting with the others in a loggia filled with Greek statuary. He looked strained – the familiar nervous tapping of his foot was more pronounced than ever. He told us he had not left the house for two months – amazing considering he was urban praetor and not supposed to be out of Rome for more than ten days a year. At the head of the table sat his mother, Servilia; also present were his wife Porcia and his sister Tertia, who was married to Cassius. Finally there was M. Favonius, the former praetor known as Cato’s Ape on account of his closeness to Brutus’s uncle. Tertia announced that Cassius was on his way.

  Cicero suggested I might fill in the time while we waited by giving a detailed account of the recent debates in the Senate and the public assembly, whereupon Servilia, who had ignored me up to that point, turned her fierce eye upon me and said, ‘Oh, so this is your famous spy?’

  She was a female Caesar – that is the best way I can describe her: quick-brained, handsome, haughty, bone-hard. The Dictator had presented her with lavish gifts, including estates confiscated from his enemies and huge jewels picked up on his conquests, yet when her son arranged his murder and she was given the news, her eyes stayed as dry as the gemstones he had given her. In this too she was like Caesar. Cicero was slightly awed by her.

  I stammered my way through the transcript of my notes, all the while conscious of Servilia’s stare, and at the end she said with great contempt, ‘A grain commissionership in Asia! It was for this that Caesar was assassinated – so that my son could become a corn merchant?’

  ‘Even so,’ said Cicero, ‘I think he should take it. It’s better than nothing – certainly better than staying here.’

  Brutus said, ‘I agree with you on your last point at least. I can’t stay hidden from view any longer. I’m losing respect with every day that passes. But Asia? No, what I really need to do is go to Rome and do what the urban praetor always does at this time of year – stage the Games of Apollo and show myself to the Roman people.’ His sensitive face was full of anguish.

  ‘You can’t go to Rome,’ replied Cicero. ‘It’s far too dangerous. Listen, the rest of us are more or less expendable, but not you, Brutus – your name and your honour make you the great rallying point of freedom. My advice is to take this commission, do some honourable public work far away from Italy in safety, and await more favourable events. Things will change: in politics they always do.’

  At that moment Cassius arrived and Servilia asked Cicero to repeat what he’d just said. But whereas adversity had reduced Brutus to a state of noble suffering, it had put Cassius in a rage, and he started pounding on the table: ‘I did not survive the massacre at Carrhae and save Syria from the Parthians in order to be made a grain collector in Sicily! It’s an insult.’

  Cicero said, ‘Well then, what will you do?’

  ‘Leave Italy. Go abroad. Go to Greece.’

  ‘Greece,’ observed Cicero, ‘will soon be rather crowded, whereas first of all Sicily is safe, second you’ll be doing your duty like a good constitutionalist, and third and above all you’ll be closer to Italy to exploit opportunities when they arise. You must be our great military commander.’

  ‘What sort of opportunities?’

  ‘Well, for example, Octavian could yet cause all sorts of trouble for Antony.’

  ‘Octavian? That’s one of your jokes! He’s far more likely to come after us than he is to pursue a quarrel with Antony.’

  ‘Not at all – I saw the boy when he was on the Bay of Naples, and he’s not as ill-disposed towards us as you might think. “It’s my legacy I want, not vengeance” – those were his very words. His real enemy is Antony.’

  ‘Then Antony will crush him.’

  ‘But Antony has to crush Decimus first, and that’s when the war will start – when Antony tries to take Nearer Gaul away from him.’

  ‘Decimus,’ said Cassius bitterly, ‘is the man who has let us down more than any other. Just think what we could have done with those two legions of his if he’d brought them south in March! But it’s too late now: Antony’s Macedonian legions will outnumber him two to one.’

  The mention of Decimus was like the breaking of a dam. Denunciations flowed from everyone round the table, Favonius especially, who maintained he should have warned them he was mentioned in Caesar’s will: ‘That did more to turn the people against us than anything else.’

  Cicero listened in growing dismay. He intervened to say that there was no point in weeping over past errors, but couldn’t resist adding, ‘Besides, if it’s mistakes you’re talking about, never mind Decimus – the seeds of our present plight were sown when you failed to call a meeting of the Senate, failed to rally the people to our cause, and failed to seize control of the republic.’

  ‘Well upon my word!’ exclaimed Servilia. ‘I never heard anything like it – to be accused of a lack of resolution by you of all people!’

  Cicero glowered at her and immediately fell silent, his cheeks burning either with fury or embarrassment, and not long after that the meeting ended. My notes record only two conclusions. Brutus and Cassius agreed grudgingly at least to consider accepting their grain commissionerships, but only after Servilia announced in her grandest manner that she would arrange for the wording o
f the Senate resolution to be couched in more flattering terms. And Brutus reluctantly conceded that it was impossible for him to go to Rome and that his praetorian games would have to be staged in his absence. Apart from that the conference was a failure, with nothing decided. As Cicero explained to Atticus in a letter dictated on the way home, it was now a case of ‘every man for himself’: I found the ship going to pieces, or rather its scattered fragments. No plan, no thought, no method. Hence, though I had no doubts before, I am now all the more determined to escape from here, and as soon as I possibly can.

  The die was cast. He would go to Greece.

  As for me, I was almost sixty and had privately resolved that the time had come for me to leave Cicero’s service and live what remained of my life alone. I knew from the way he talked that he wasn’t expecting us to part company. He assumed we would share a villa in Athens and write philosophy together until one or other of us died of old age. But I could not face leaving Italy again. My health was not good. And love him as I did, I was tired of being a mere appendage to his brain.

  I dreaded having to tell him and kept postponing the fateful moment. He undertook a kind of farewell progress south through Italy, saying goodbye to all his properties and reliving old memories, until eventually we reached Puteoli at the beginning of July – or Quintilis, as he still defiantly insisted on calling it. He had one last villa he wished to visit, along the Bay of Naples in Pompeii, and he decided he would leave on the first leg of his journey abroad from there, hugging the coast down to Sicily and boarding a merchant ship in Syracuse (he judged it too dangerous to sail from Brundisium, as the Macedonian legions were due to start arriving any day). To convey all his books, his property and household staff, I hired three ten-oared boats. He took his mind off the voyage, which he dreaded, by trying to decide what literary composition we should undertake while at sea. He was working on three treatises simultaneously, moving between them as his reading and his inclination took him: On Friendship, On Duties and On Virtues. With these he would complete his great scheme of absorbing Greek philosophy into Latin and of turning it in the process from a set of abstractions into principles for living.