Sketches New and Old
Page 68
THE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED"--[Written about 1865.]
Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from theRoman "Daily Evening Fasces," of the date of that tremendous occurrence.
Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction asgathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder and writingthem up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living delight inthis labor of love--for such it is to him, especially if he knows thatall the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only onethat will contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret hasoften come over me that I was not reporting in Rome when Caesar waskilled--reporting on an evening paper, and the only one in the city, andgetting at least twelve hours ahead of the morning-paper boys with thismost magnificent "item" that ever fell to the lot of the craft. Otherevents have happened as startling as this, but none that possessed sopeculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite "item" of the presentday, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank, fame, andsocial and political standing of the actors in it.
However, as I was not permitted to report Caesar's assassination in theregular way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translatethe following able account of it from the original Latin of the RomanDaily Evening Fasces of that date--second edition:
Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitementyesterday by the occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sickenthe heart and fill the soul with fear, while they inspire all thinkingmen with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held socheaply and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As theresult of that affray, it is our painful duty, as public journalists, torecord the death of one of our most esteemed citizens--a man whose nameis known wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been ourpleasure and our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongueof slander and falsehood, to the best of our poor ability. We refer toMr. J. Caesar, the Emperor-elect.
The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine themfrom the conflicting statements of eye-witnesses, were about asfollows:--The affair was an election row, of course. Nine-tenths of theghastly butcheries that disgrace the city nowadays grow out of thebickerings and jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursedelections. Rome would be the gainer by it if her very constables wereelected to serve a century; for in our experience we have never even beenable to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozenknockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with drunkenvagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesarat the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown wasoffered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing itthree times was not sufficient to save him from the whispered insults ofsuch men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of thedisappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenthand other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically andcontemptuously of Mr. Caesar's conduct upon that occasion.
We are further informed that there are many among us who think they arejustified in believing that the assassination of Julius Caesar was aput-up thing--a cut-and-dried arrangement, hatched by Marcus Brutus and alot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully according tothe program. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, weleave to the people to judge for themselves, only asking that they willread the following account of the sad occurrence carefully anddispassionately before they render that judgment.
The Senate was already in session, and Caesar was coming down the streettoward the capitol, conversing with some personal friends, and followed,as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just as he was passing in frontof Demosthenes and Thucydides' drug store, he was observing casually to agentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Idesof March were come. The reply was, "Yes, they are come, but not goneyet." At this moment Artemidorus stepped up and passed the time of day,and asked Caesar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind,which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also saidsomething about an "humble suit" which he wanted read. Artexnidorusbegged that attention might be paid to his first, because it was ofpersonal consequence to Caesar. The latter replied that what concernedhimself should be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus beggedand beseeched him to read the paper instantly!--[Mark that: It is hintedby William Shakespeare, who saw the beginning and the end of theunfortunate affray, that this "schedule" was simply a note discovering toCaesar that a plot was brewing to take his life.]--However, Caesarshook him off, and refused to read any petition in the street. He thenentered the capitol, and the crowd followed him.
About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we considerthat, taken in connection with the events which succeeded it, it bears anappalling significance: Mr. Papilius Lena remarked to George W. Cassias(commonly known as the "Nobby Boy of the Third Ward"), a bruiser in thepay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive;and when Cassias asked "What enterprise?" he only closed his left eyetemporarily and said with simulated indifference, "Fare you well," andsauntered toward Caesar. Marcus Brutus, who is suspected of being theringleader of the band that killed Caesar, asked what it was that Lenahad said. Cassias told him, and added in a low tone, "I fear our purposeis discovered."
Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, and a momentafter Cassias urged that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca, whose reputationhere is none of the best, to be sudden, for he feared prevention. Hethen turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should bedone, and swore that either he or Caesar would never turn back--he wouldkill himself first. At this time Caesar was talking to some of theback-country members about the approaching fall elections, and payinglittle attention to what was going on around him. Billy Trebonius gotinto conversation with the people's friend and Caesar's--Mark Antony--andunder some pretense or other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca,Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of infamous desperadoesthat infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Caesar. ThenMetellus Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalledfrom banishment, but Caesar rebuked him for his fawning conduct, andrefused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, firstBrutus and then Cassias begged for the return of the banished Publius;but Caesar still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was asfixed as the North Star, and proceeded to speak in the most complimentaryterms of the firmness of that star and its steady character. Then hesaid he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the countrythat was; therefore, since he was "constant" that Cimber should bebanished, he was also "constant" that he should stay banished, and he'dbe hanged if he didn't keep him so!
Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang atCaesar and struck him with a dirk, Caesar grabbing him by the arm withhis right hand, and launching a blow straight from the shoulder with hisleft, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed upagainst Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants.Cassias and Cimber and Cinna rushed upon him with their daggers drawn,and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound upon his body; but beforehe could strike again, and before either of the others could strike atall, Caesar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blowsof his powerful fist. By this time the Senate was in an indescribableuproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies had blockaded the doors intheir frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-armsand his assistants were struggling with the assassins, venerable senatorshad cast aside their encumbering robes, and were leaping over benches andflying down the aisles in wild confusion toward the shelter of thecommittee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting "Po-lice! Po-lice!"in discordant tones that rose above the frightful din like shriekingwinds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all great C
aesar stoodwith his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought hisassailants weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and theunwavering courage which he had shown before on many a bloody field.Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their daggers andfell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last,when Caesar saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderousknife, it is said he seemed utterly overpowered with grief and amazement,and, dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his face in thefolds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effortto stay the hand that gave it. He only said, "Et tu, Brute?" and felllifeless on the marble pavement.
We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the sameone he wore in his tent on the afternoon of the day he overcame theNervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it was found to becut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothingin the pockets. It will be exhibited at the coroner's inquest, and willbe damning proof of the fact of the killing. These latter facts may berelied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position enables him tolearn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbinginterest of-to-day.
LATER: While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and otherfriends of the late Caesar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to theForum, and at last accounts Antony and Brutus were making speeches overit and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to press, thechief of police is satisfied there is going to be a riot, and is takingmeasures accordingly.