Caesar. Life of a Colossus (Adrian Goldsworthy) Yale University Press (90 page)

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to bribe the electorate and make fortunes by exploiting the inhabitants of the provinces. Brutus was widely respected and in much of his life seems to have justified Shakespeare’s phrase the ‘noblest Roman of them all’. However, on one occasion it is known that he had ordered his agents to extort by any means possible 48 per cent interest from a community in Crete that had unwisely taken a loan from him at four times the legal rate. The Republic that the conspirators believed in was one that maintained the privilege of the senatorial elite. Faith in the system was no longer so deeply entrenched amongst the rest of society as they supposed.

The Assassination

The conspirators resolved to act quickly, since they knew that Caesar planned to leave Rome on 18 March and would not return for years. They were probably also encouraged by the hostility he had encountered due to his treatment of Flavus and Marullus, and also the controversy over the episode of the Lupercalia. Cicero later claimed that Antony was Caesar’s true killer because he had raised the spectre of kingship on that day. Then came the false rumour of the prophecy and wild tales that Caesar planned to move the capital of the empire to Alexandria or even Troy. It was also claimed that one of the tribunes, Helvius Cinna, had told friends that he planned to propose a bill granting to Caesar the right to marry as many women as he liked with a view to producing a son and heir. This story may not have spread until after the murder, since Cinna was lynched in the aftermath of Caesar’s funeral and was not able to deny it. Anyway good gossip has always tended to be passed on even when people do not actually believe it. Aware that the dictator was about to leave Rome, the conspirators decided to strike on 15 March when Caesar was expected to attend a meeting of the Senate, for it was felt that he would be less on his guard and easier to approach on such an occasion. Reports and rumours of plots certainly reached the dictator, but these were vague and as often implicated men like Antony and Dolabella as any of the real conspirators. Caesar dismissed them all, although he is said to have stated that he was far more inclined to suspect the lean Cassius with his serious nature than the wild-living Antony and Dolabella. On another occasion he is supposed to have declared that Brutus had enough sense not to be impatient for his death.17

Caesar was a rational man and judged that Rome needed him, because without him it would simply relapse into civil war. He was dictator and he 505

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was effectively a monarch, but he was not a cruel one and used his powers for the general good. The Republic had peace, and was better run than it had been for decades, even if things were not being done in the traditional way. This last point mattered little to a man who had declared the Republic no more than an empty name, but perhaps he did not realise how much the old ideal meant to others, or simply felt that the benefits of his rule must overcome any nostalgia for the past. Despite repeated requests from his close associates, Caesar refused to re-form his bodyguard or take other precautions for his safety, replying that he did not wish to live in fear or permanently under close guard. Perhaps the weariness of years of hard effort, combined with the prospect of unending labour governing the Republic and its provinces, made him less inclined to worry. For him the nature of public life had changed and now consisted almost entirely of dutiful effort, for all the men with whom he had once competed for supremacy – Crassus and Pompey most of all, but also Catulus, Cato and even Bibulus and their generation –

had gone. There was no question that he had won, that he was the first man in the Republic, whose glory and achievements outstripped all of Rome’s other great men, both past and present. Now he could only seriously compete with himself. Yet Caesar had always taken duty seriously and continued to throw himself and all his great energy into service of Rome. The planned wars against the Dacians and Parthians would certainly have brought him more glory – and clean glory since the enemy was foreign – but few even of his critics would not have felt that the conflicts themselves were against enemies who deserved to be humbled by Rome. Caesar may have been tired, and perhaps he found his victory a little hollow. He probably did not fear death, but that is not to say that he courted it. If his new regime was to succeed then it could not permanently be maintained by fear, but needed to rest on the acceptance that it was better than the alternatives. Showing that he was unafraid of his own class, both his allies and former enemies, demonstrated his own confidence. He knew he was disliked for his dominance, but hoped that this would be tolerated, and so he trusted to the good fortune that had in the past helped to win so many victories, to his own ability and just rule, and to the pragmatism of others. Three years spent on campaign and new victories would hopefully help Rome’s elite get used to his rule – perhaps it would also remind them that Caesar was a better master than some of his subordinates. We do not know whether on his return he would have developed his position further, and possibly begun to mark out a successor to his powers. He is supposed to have intended to employ Octavius as his Master of Horse for at least one year of the campaign, but 506

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another man was also named so there was certainly as yet no final indication of succession. This is impossible to say and it could well be that he had not yet devised any specific plans. In the winter of 53–52 BC Caesar had badly misjudged the mood of the Gaulish aristocracy. Now he had done the same in Rome.18

Our sources are filled with prodigies warning of the death of Rome’s most powerful man. One of the most famous claims that on the night of 14 March Calpurnia suffered a nightmare in which she is variously claimed to have seen either the pediment of the house collapsing or that she was holding his murdered body in her arms. Then the morning sacrifices on the 15th were repeated several times, but the omens were always unfavourable. Caesar is supposed to have been surprised because his wife was not normally given to superstition and eventually Calpurnia persuaded him to remain at home. He sent word to inform the Senate that ill health prevented him from leaving his house to perform any public business. It is possible that there was some truth in this and that he was unwell. Antony was to have carried the message to the Senate, but before he left Decimus Brutus arrived – it was normal for friends to greet an important senator early in the morning so there was nothing unusual in that. Both men had dined on the previous night at the house of Lepidus, where after the meal the question of what was the best death is supposed to have been raised. Caesar had been taking little part in the discussion, but quickly looked up to say that the answer was an end that was sudden and unexpected. On the following morning Brutus was able to convince Caesar to reverse his decision. Plutarch says that he mocked the warnings of the soothsayers and lured Caesar with the claim that the Senate was going to offer him kingship outside Italy, but this is probably a later invention. There were plenty of reasons why Caesar should wish to attend the Senate when he was due to leave the city in three days. Whatever the details, eventually the dictator got into a litter and was carried through the Forum to where the Senate was meeting in one of the temples that formed part of Pompey’s theatre complex. A few months before Caesar had won praise for ordering the restoration of the public statues of and monuments to Sulla and Pompey, and so a statue of his former son-in-law would look on during the debate. After he left his house, a slave arrived claiming to have vital news for the dictator. The man was given permission to stay and await his return.19

It was late morning by the time Caesar arrived and the time had passed nervously for the conspirators, prey to fears that their plot had been exposed. Apart from Decimus Brutus, the conspirators had gathered early using the 507

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pretext that Cassius’ son was formally becoming a man by publicly assuming the
toga virilis
. Then they went to the temple and waited outside for Caesar’s arrival. Their daggers were concealed within the cases in which senators habitually kept their long stylus pens. In Pompey’s theatre itself was a troop of gladiators owned by Decimus Brutus, who were armed and ready, but had reason to be there since it was to be the venue for some fights to be staged in the near future. One man greeted Brutus and Cassius in a rather cryptic manner, which they first interpreted as a sign that someone had given them away. Their tension increased when the same man went up to the dictator as he arrived and spoke to him for some time, but they soon realised that he was presenting a petition. En route Caesar had been handed a scroll by the Greek teacher Artemidorus, who had spent time in Brutus’ household and seems to have known of the conspiracy. Through choice or lack of opportunity the dictator did not read it. None of the sources suggest that he was in any way suspicious and he cheerfully called out to a soothsayer, who had previously warned him to fear the Ides of March, in an exchange so familiar from Shakespeare – ‘The Ides of March are Come.’ ‘Aye, Caesar, but not gone.’ The conspirators greeted him as he stepped down from the litter. Trebonius – or in Plutarch’s version Decimus Brutus – took Antony aside and kept him talking while Caesar and the remainder went in. They were aware that Caesar’s fellow consul was both loyal and a burly individual, and would normally have sat beside the dictator, close enough to aid him. The senators already inside the hall rose when Caesar entered. The dictator then went to his golden chair, which presumably was next to Antony’s curule chair since he was the only consul apart from Caesar.20

Before the meeting could formally begin the conspirators clustered around the dictator. Lucius Tillius Cimber, who had served under Caesar in the past, asked for the recall of his brother, who presumably had been an ardent Pompeian. The others pressed round to implore Caesar to grant the plea, touching and kissing his hands. Publius Servilius Casca Longus moved round to stand behind Caesar’s chair. The dictator refused to be moved by the pleas, replying calmly to refute their arguments. Suddenly Cimber grabbed Caesar’s toga and pulled it down from his shoulder. This was the agreed signal and Casca now drew his dagger and stabbed, but in his nervousness only managed to graze the dictator’s shoulder or neck. Caesar turned and seems to have said something like, ‘Bloody Casca, what are you playing at!’

In some accounts he grabbed Casca’s arms and tried to wrench his dagger away, although in Suetonius’ version he used his own pen as a weapon and stabbed his assailant. Casca – Plutarch says specifically using Greek and not 508

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the Latin Caesar had employed – called out to his brother for help. The other conspirators stabbed and slashed at Caesar. Several, including Brutus, were accidentally wounded by the others in the confused mêlée that developed around the dictator. Only two senators tried to help Caesar, but they could not break through to him. The dictator struggled with them to the end, trying to fight or force his way out. Marcus Brutus stabbed him once in the groin, and some claimed that when he saw Servilia’s son he stopped struggling and spoke one last time, saying ‘You too, my son’ – sadly there is no direct evidence for Shakespeare’s version of
et tu Brute
. Then the dictator covered his head with his toga and collapsed, falling next to the pedestal of Pompey’s statue. There were twenty-three wounds on his body.21

The attack had been so sudden and unexpected that the hundreds of watching senators had first been too shocked to react. When the deed was done and the conspirators stood, their clothes dishevelled, some wounded and all spattered with blood, Brutus called on Cicero, who had not been privy to the secret, to take the lead. Even as he did so panic spread throughout the hall and all of the other senators, including the famous orator, fled away as fast as they could. This was not quite the reception they had wanted, but still full of the success of their enterprise, the conspirators trooped out and walked up to the Capitol, carrying on a pole one of the caps that a freed slave traditionally wore, symbolising the liberty they had brought to the State. Antony for the moment was in hiding, and a little later three of Caesar’s slaves dared to enter the hall, lifted the body and put it in his litter, then carried it back to his house. For a while all of Rome was stunned and an uneasy truce developed. Cicero eventually went to the Capitol and congratulated the assassins, but when Brutus and Cassius went down and spoke from the Rostra in the Forum, the crowd that gathered showed no sign of enthusiasm. Antony was alive, as was Lepidus, who held command of the troops camped just outside the city. For a while they seemed conciliatory, Antony met the conspirators privately and then on the next day in the Senate. The House passed a motion to recognise all of Caesar’s acts and appointments, since too many people, including a number of the conspirators, had benefited from these to desire their repeal. In the mood of reconciliation, the Senate voted to give Caesar a public funeral, which was held in the Forum on 18 March. Antony ordered a herald to read out the text of the honours so recently voted to the dictator by the Senate and the oath taken by every senator to preserve his life, and then gave a short speech – Shakespeare’s famous version probably gives the best modern reflection of the power of Roman oratory. He also read out Caesar’s 509

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will, which included the gift of extensive gardens near the Tiber to the people of Rome, and an additional award of 300 sestertii (75 denarii) to each citizen. His purple robe, rent and bloodstained from his wounds, was put on display, and some sources also claim that there was a wax effigy of Caesar showing his injuries. A large crowd had gathered – Cicero later dismissed them as the rabble of the city, but this was no more than conventional abuse of opponents, and it seems to have consisted of a broad range of different groups. A group of magistrates and former magistrates began to lift the byre on which the body was laid, for it was intended to carry it to a spot next to his daughter’s tomb on the Campus Martius and cremate it there. The angry crowd would have none of this. Just as their hero Clodius had been burnt in the Senate House, so Caesar would also be cremated inside the city, in the Forum at its very heart. The seats and benches used by the magistrates and the courts were smashed and used to feed the fire. The mood was hysterical. The actors hired to dress in the triumphal and magisterial regalia of Caesar and his ancestors now tore these off, ripped them into pieces and tossed them into the flames. His veteran soldiers threw their weapons and armour into the blaze, while women added their finest jewellery. Occasionally crowds had protested against Caesar, but this had always been over a specific grievance. Their affection for him, as a man who throughout his career had consistently advocated measures for the benefit of the wider population and not simply the narrow elite, had never seriously wavered. In 49 BC the vast bulk of the wider population of Italy had not been inclined to take up arms against Caesar. Then and now they had found it much harder than his senatorial opponents to see Caesar as an enemy of the Republic, a term that anyway meant different things to different people. After the funeral came rioting and attacks on the houses of the conspirators and those who had supported them. The dictator’s loyal supporter Helvius Cinna was murdered by a mob who mistook him for one Cornelius Cinna, who was a prominent critic of Caesar. It was not just Roman citizens who lamented Caesar. At the funeral, and for a number of nights afterwards, Suetonius tells us that there were many foreigners joining in the lamentation after the fashion of their culture. Especially prominent were members of Rome’s Jewish population.22