Caesar (65 page)

“Ohhhhh!” cried Cicero from the far side of the room. But Pompey paid him no attention; Cicero turned and left to plod back across the Campus Martius to the Pincian Hill, trembling almost as hard as Cato had. That was the end of it, then. That was the watershed. There could be no going back now. So close, so close! Oh, why did those two boni irascibles have to arrive at just the wrong moment?“ Well,” he said to himself when he reached home and began to write a note to Balbus, break the news, “if there is civil war, there is only one man to blame. Cato.”

At dawn the next day, the seventh one of January, the Senate met in the temple of Jupiter Stator, a site which prevented the attendance of Pompey. Though the pallid Gaius Marcellus Minor was present, he handed the meeting to his junior colleague, Lentulus Crus, as soon as the prayers and offerings were made.“ I do not intend to orate,” Lentulus Crus said harshly, his florid face mottled with bluish patches, his breathing labored. “It is time and more than time, Conscript Fathers, that we dealt with our present crisis in the only sensible way. I propose that we pass the Senatus Consultum Ultimum, and that the terms of it be to grant the consuls, praetors, tribunes of the plebs, consulars and promagistrates within the vicinity of Rome full authority to protect the interests of the State against the tribunician veto.” A huge buzz of noise erupted, for the senators were genuinely astonished at the peculiar wording of this ultimate decree—and equally astonished that it did not specify Pompey by name.“ You can't do that!” roared Mark Antony, leaping off the tribunician bench. “You are proposing to instruct the tribunes of the plebs to protect the State against their own power to veto? It can't be done! Nor can a Senatus Consultum Ultimum be conjured into force to muzzle the tribunes of the plebs! The tribunes of the plebs are the servants of the State—always have been, always will be! The terms of your decree, junior consul, are completely unconstitutional! The ultimate decree is passed to protect the State from treasonous activity, and I defy you to say that any one of the ten members of my College is a traitor! But I will take the matter to the Plebs, I promise you! And have you thrown from the Tarpeian Rock for attempting to obstruct us in our sworn duty!”

“Lictors, remove this man,” said Lentulus Crus.“ I veto that, Lentulus! I veto your ultimate decree!”

“Lictors, remove this man.”

“They'll have to remove me too!” yelled Quintus Cassius.“ Lictors, remove both these men.” But when the dozen togate lictors attempted to lay hands on Antony and Quintus Cassius, it was an unequal fight; it took the other several dozen lictors present in the chamber to grasp hold of the furiously fighting Antony and the equally angry Quintus Cassius, who were finally ejected, bruised and bleeding, togas torn and disarrayed, into the upper Forum.“ Bastards!” growled Curio, who had quit the chamber when the lictors moved.“ Bigots,” said Marcus Caelius Rufus. “Where to now?”

“Down to the well of the Comitia,” said Antony, hand out to prevent Quintus Cassius from rearranging his toga. “No, Quintus! Don't tidy yourself up, whatever you do! We're going to remain exactly the way we are until we get to Caesar in Ravenna. Let him see with his own eyes what Lentulus Crus did.” Having drawn a very large crowd—no difficulty these days, when so much apprehension and bewilderment pervaded the thoughts of those who liked to frequent the Forum—Antony displayed his wounds and the wounds of Quintus Cassius.“ See us? The tribunes of the plebs have been manhandled as well as prevented from doing their duty!” he shouted. “Why? To protect the interests of a very few men who want to rule in Rome their way, which is not the accepted and acceptable way! They want to banish rule of the People and replace it with rule of the Senate! Take heed, fellow plebeians! Take heed, those patricians who do not belong to the ranks of the boni! The days of the People's Assemblies are numbered! When Cato and his boni minions take over the Senate—which they are doing at this very moment!—they will use Pompeius and military force to remove all say in government from you! They will use Pompeius and military force to strike down men like Gaius Caesar, who has always stood as protector of the People against the power of the Senate!”

He looked over the heads of the crowd to where a large group of lictors was marching down the Forum from Jupiter Stator. “This has to be a very short speech, Quirites! I can see the servants of the Senate coming to take me to prison, and I refuse to go to prison! I'm going to Gaius Caesar in Ravenna, together with my courageous colleague Quintus Cassius and these two champions of the People, Gaius Curio and Marcus Caelius! I'm going to show Gaius Caesar what the Senate has done! And do not forget, be you plebeian or patrician, that Gaius Caesar is the victim of a very small, very vindictive minority of senators who will not tolerate opposition! They have persecuted him, they have impugned his dignitas—and your dignitas, Quirites!—and they have made a mockery of Rome's constitution! Guard your rights, Quirites, and wait for Caesar to avenge you!”

With a broad grin and a genial wave of the hand, Antony left the rostra amid huge cheers, his three companions around him. By the time the lictors had managed to penetrate the crowd, they were long gone. In the temple of Jupiter Stator things were going very much better for the boni. Few indeed were present to vote against the Senatus Consultum Ultimum, which passed almost unanimously. Most interesting, for those with the detachment to notice it, was the conduct and deportment of the senior consul, Gaius Marcellus Minor; he sat looking ill, said nothing, dragged himself to the right of the floor when it came time to vote, then returned wearily to his curule chair. His brother and his cousin, the ex-consuls, were far more vociferous. By the time the lictors returned from the well of the Comitia empty-handed, the vote was taken and the decree of martial law properly recorded.“ I am adjourning the House until tomorrow,” said Lentulus Crus, satisfied, “when it will meet in the Curia Pompeia on the Campus Martius. Our esteemed consular and proconsul Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus cannot be excluded from further deliberations.”

“I suppose,” said Servius Sulpicius Rufus, who had been the senior consul in Marcus Marcellus's year, “this means we have declared war on Gaius Caesar. Who has not moved.”

“We declared war,” said Marcellus Major, “when we offered Gnaeus Pompeius a sword.”

“It was Caesar who declared war!” Cato hollered. “When he refused to accept the directives of this body and obey them, he outlawed himself!”

“Yet,” said Servius Sulpicius gently, “you have not declared him hostis in your ultimate decree. He is not yet officially a public enemy. Ought you not to do that?”

“Yes, we ought!” said Lentulus Crus, whose high color and audible breathing indicated an unhappy state of affairs within his body, though it was Marcellus Minor who looked sick.“ You cannot,” said Lucius Cotta, Caesar's uncle, and one of those who had voted against the ultimate decree. “So far Caesar has made no move to go to war, yet you have declared war. Until he does make that move, he is not hostis and cannot be declared hostis.”

“The important thing,” said Cato, “is to strike first!”

“I agree, Marcus Cato,” said Lentulus Crus. “That is why we meet tomorrow on the Campus Martius, where our military expert can advise us on how to strike, and where.”

But when the Senate met in Pompey's curia the next day, the eighth one of January, its military expert, Pompey, demonstrated clearly to everyone that he had not thought about striking first, nor striking anywhere. He concentrated on his military strength rather than on his military tactics.“ We must remember,” he said to the House, “that all Caesar's legions are disaffected. If Caesar should ask them to march, I very much doubt they would consent. As to our own troops, there are now three legions in Italia, thanks to vigorous recruiting in the last few days. There are seven legions belonging to me in the Spains, and I have already sent word to mobilize them. The pity of it is that at this time of season, they cannot sail. Therefore it is important that they start out by road before Gaius Caesar tries to intercept them.” He smiled cheerfully. “I assure you, Conscript Fathers, that there is no need to worry.” The meetings went on daily, and much was done to prepare for every eventuality. When Faustus Sulla moved that King Juba of Numidia be declared a Friend and Ally of the Roman People, Gaius Marcellus Minor emerged from his apathy to commend Faustus Sulla's motion; it passed. When, however, Faustus Sulla then suggested that he go personally to Mauretania to talk to Kings Bocchus and Bogud—a strategy Marcellus Minor again applauded—Philippus's son, a tribune of the plebs, vetoed it.“ You're like your father, a fence-sitter!” snarled Cato.“ No, Marcus Cato, I do assure you. If Caesar makes any hostile move, we will need Faustus Sulla here,” said Philippus Junior firmly. The most interesting aspect of this exchange concerned the tribunician veto itself; with a Senatus Consultum Ultimum in effect protecting the State against the tribunician veto, young Philippus's veto was accepted. Ah, but all that was as nothing compared to the exquisite pleasure of stripping Caesar of his imperium, his provinces and his army! The Senate appointed Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus the new governor of the further Gauls, and the ex-praetor Marcus Considius Nonianus the new governor of Italian Gaul and Illyricum. Caesar was now a privatus; nothing protected him. But Cato suffered too; though he had never wanted a province, he now found himself appointed governor of Sicily. Africa went to Lucius Aelius Tubero, a man whose loyalty to the boni was suspect but whose governorship was inevitable; the pool of available men had shrunk to nothing. This gave Pompey an excellent excuse to nominate Appius Claudius Censor to be governor of Greece as distinct from Macedonia, even though he had already had a province, and to suggest that for the moment nothing be done in Macedonia save to let it continue under the care of its quaestor, Titus Antistius. Because it was not generally known that Pompey had resolved to fight Caesar in the East rather than on Italian soil, the significance of sending Appius Claudius to Greece and preserving Macedonia for the future did not impinge on most of the senators, whose thinking had gone no further than whether Caesar would march, or wouldn't march.“ In the meantime,” said Lentulus Crus, “I think we ought to make sure Italia herself is well guarded and properly defended. For which reasons I propose that we send legates endowed with proconsular imperiums to all parts of Italia. Their first duty will be to enlist soldiers—we don't have enough troops under arms to distribute everywhere.”

“I'll take one of those,” said Ahenobarbus instantly. “No need to go to my provinces this very moment, better to make sure Italia is prepared first. So give me charge of the Adriatic coast below Picenum. I'll travel the Via Valeria and pick up whole legions of volunteers among the Marsi and the Paeligni, who are in my clientele.”

“Custody of the Via Aemilia Scaura, the Via Aurelia and the Via Clodia—which is to say, the north on the Etrurian side—I nominate should go to Lucius Scribonius Libo!” said Pompey eagerly. That provoked a few grins. The marriage between Pompey's elder son, Gnaeus, and the daughter of Appius Claudius Censor had neither prospered nor lasted. After it ended in divorce, young Gnaeus Pompey married Scribonius Libo's daughter, a match which did not please his father but did please Gnaeus, who had insisted on it. This left Pompey with the task of finding a good job for a mediocre man. Hence Etruria, not likely to be Caesar's focus. Quintus Minucius Thermus inherited the Via Flaminia, which was the north on the eastern side in Umbria, and was instructed to station himself in Iguvium. Nepotism came into the picture again when Pompey suggested that his close cousin, Gaius Lucilius Hirrus, be given duty in Picenum at Labienus's hometown of Camerinum. Picenum, of course, was Pompey's own fief—and closest to Caesar in Ravenna—so other men were sent there too, Lentulus Spinther the consular to Ancona and Publius Attius Varus the ex-praetor to Pompey's hometown of Auximum. And poor discouraged Cicero, present at these meetings because they were being held outside the pomerium, was ordered to go to Campania and recruit.“ There!” said Lentulus Crus at the end of it, jubilantly. “Once Caesar realizes we've done all of this, he'll think twice about marching! He won't dare!”

RAVENNA TO ANCONA

The messenger Antony and Curio had sped on ahead of their own flight from Rome reached Caesar's villa near Ravenna the day after Antony and Quintus Cassius had been ejected from the House by force. Though he arrived close to the dawning of the ninth day of January, Caesar received him at once, took the letter and sent him to a meal and a comfortable bed with a warm smile of thanks: two hundred miles in less than two days was a grueling ride. Antony's letter was brief.

Caesar, Quintus Cassius and I were manhandled out of the Senate when we tried to interpose our vetoes against a Senatus Consultum Ultimum. It's an odd decree. Doesn't declare you hostis nor specifically name Pompeius. It authorizes all the magistrates and consulars to protect the State against the tribunician veto, if you please. The sole reference to Pompeius is a mention that among those entrusted with the care of the State are “promagistrates within the vicinity of Rome.” Which applies as much to Cicero, sitting awaiting his triumph, as to Pompeius, just sitting. I would imagine Pompeius is a disappointed man. But that's one thing about the boni—they hate awarding special commands. There are four of us coming. Curio and Caelius elected to leave the city too. We'll take the Via Flaminia. Oh, I don't know if it will be of any use to you, but I've ensured that we'll arrive in exactly the same condition as we were when the lictors finished tossing us out. Which means we'll stink a bit, so have hot baths ready.

The only trusted legate Caesar had with him was Aulus Hirtius, who came in to find Caesar sitting, the letter in his hand, staring at a mosaic wall depicting the flight of King Aeneas from burning Ilium, his aged father on his right shoulder and the Palladium tucked under his left arm.“ One of the best things about Ravenna,” Caesar said without looking at Hirtius, “is the skill of the locals at mosaic. Better even than the Sicilian Greeks.” Hirtius sat down where he could see Caesar's face. It was calm and contented.“ I hear a messenger arrived in a terrific hurry,” said Hirtius.“ Yes. The Senate has passed its ultimate decree.” Hirtius's breath hissed. “You're declared a public enemy!”