Julius Caesar (36 page)

But his arrogance now seems to have known no bounds. “One day,” as Suetonius recounts, “when the entire senate, armed with an imposing list of honors which had just been voted him, came to where he was sitting in front of the temple of Venus Genetrix, he did not rise to greet them.” This deliberate affront was the kind of action that more than almost any other led to his death. (It is noticeable how careful Augustus always was, even though the senate was no less a rubber stamp in his day, to treat its members with formal courtesy, and to keep up the pretense that he was no more than first man among them.) During the triumphal festivities Caesar summoned an old and famous writer of mimes, Laberius, personally to direct one of his own plays. Laberius, feeling that the command was insulting both in view of his age and his rank (he was over sixty and a knight), took his revenge. He inserted into the known script a number of lines which indicated the feelings of the people toward Caesar. Among them were these:

He must many people fear

Whom many people fear.

According to the grammarian Macrobius, reporting the occasion: “Everyone fixed their eyes on Caesar at these words, and were pleased to see that the import of them had not escaped him.” Plutarch confirms the unfortunate impression made by the triumph and its accompanying celebrations: “For he had not defeated foreign generals, or barbarian kings, but had destroyed the children and family of one of the greatest men of Rome, though unfortunate; and it did not look well to lead a procession in celebration of the calamities of his country…” As if to increase the magnitude of his folly, Caesar even allowed his two legates in Spain, Fabius and Pedius (whose failure against the Pompeians had caused him to come to their assistance) to celebrate individual triumphs. This was quite contrary to all accepted Roman tradition and, if it was designed to humiliate the opposition even further, did no more than increase their hatred of him.

It is significant that throughout rill this time, and indeed right up to his death, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt continued to reside in Rome in the villa which Caesar had allocated to her. It is understandable, perhaps, that her presence might have been required during the Egyptian triumph (though not necessary), and certainly comprehensible that in the mantis-like Ptolemaic style she might have wished to witness the humiliation of her sister Arsinoe, but her continued stay in the Roman capital requires more explanation than most historians have been willing to accord it. She openly held court (to Cicero’s great disgust), she openly proclaimed Caesar as the father of her son, and she presented to the many Romans who daily flocked to her presence the spectacle of a woman who was, in the eyes of her subjects, both a Queen and a Goddess. It is significant that, according to Suetonius, “Mark Antony informed the senate that Caesar had acknowledged Caesarion’s paternity and that other friends of Caesar’s…were aware of this.” (The fact that one of them, Oppius, later wrote a book to “prove” that the boy was not his at all can be readily understood in the light of Caesarion’s murder on Octavius’ orders.) Even more significant perhaps is that, again according to Suetonius: “Helvius Cinna, a tribune of the people, told a number of people that, in accordance with instructions, he had drawn up a bill for the commons to pass during Caesar’s absence from Rome [on his Parthian campaign] which would allow him to have as many wives as he pleased—for the purpose of having children.” Such a bill, in fact, would have legitimized his bigamy as well as Caesarion and any other children. Its relevance in the case of Cleopatra can hardly be over-emphasized. The presence of the Egyptian Queen, however much her court was sought after by the Roman
monde,
was infuriating to the
Optimates
(though men like Cicero called on her, and he was even offered some literary position by her—possibly at the Mouseion in Alexandria). The people most probably regarded her presence in their capital with indulgence; as no more than another of his foreign mistresses.

All this does not explain Cleopatra’s continued presence in Rome, nor Caesar’s determination to depart almost at once for Parthia. Yet his desire for a glory beyond that of Alexander is comprehensible, and the subjugation of the Parthians would provide this, as well as effacing the bitter memory of Crassus’ defeat. Furthermore, his distaste for the atmosphere of Rome and the feeling that he was surrounded by an invisible wall of hatred may well have made him long for the simplicity of the life of action. In Rome the torrent of measures, the appointments and elections, continued under his dictatorship, but always on the understood basis that even consulships were no longer any more than posts which he could give to his supporters as a return for their services. Thus, when a consul died on the last day of 45, Caesar had one of his adherents elected to the vacant consulship—even though it lasted less than twenty-four hours. Cicero commented sarcastically that during this consulship no one had lunch, and that such was the consul’s vigilance that he never slept a minute during his term of office.

Incidents which showed that nothing would satisfy Caesar but the title of king continued to multiply. As has been suggested, it may well be that some of them were deliberately instigated not by his supporters but by men who wished to see him destroyed. One day, for instance, his gold statue on the
rostra
was discovered to be crowned with the white fillet that was the traditional symbol of monarchy. Two tribunes of the people ordered it to be torn down and thrown away, declaring that Caesar had no need of such embellishments. His head appeared on the coins used in metropolitan Rome, an honor never before accorded to a living man but redolent of the East, where the heads of divine monarchs were normal features of the coinage. It certainly seems that he was earnestly seeking that short and unambiguous title, even to the extent of wearing the tall red boots which had been part of the garb of the ancient kings. Since the senate had already accepted that he was entitled to the royal purple toga, and since he had all the power of a king, such minor details can have only served further to inflame those who already hated him. All the senators had taken an oath to protect his life, and early in the next year (44) he was to dismiss his Spanish bodyguard as if to indicate to the senate and the people that he required no protection save that of Romans.

As if a further test was being made of the willingness of the Romans to accept the title of king, a claque—clearly organized in advance—hailed him as
Rex
during a festival in late January 44. On this occasion Caesar was entering Rome on horseback (another regal prerogative) in his purple toga and red boots, when the prearranged cries assailed him from various quarters. The test, if such it was, was conclusive, for a murmur of opposition grew to a roar of dissent, and Caesar, sensing the real feelings of the people, halted and called out: “I am Caesar, and not Rex!” The two tribunes, who had previously removed the fillet from his statue, proceeded to arrest the ringleader of the demonstration on the grounds that hailing Caesar as king was an attack on the republic. The whole affair assumed ominous proportions when Caesar’s supporters proposed to take action against the two tribunes, the senate meekly assenting. This was only averted by Caesar’s magnanimously intervening on their behalf—by having them expelled from the senate and their office. This second test of public opinion seems to have shown quite conclusively that Caesar might have all the power and the titles that he wanted, but not the one that obsessed him, for it bore a deep and ancient tabu. Caesarism had triumphed, and the foundations had been laid of the system that would henceforth rule Rome and the empire, but against the irrational not even Caesar could succeed.

The third and last test of public opinion was by far the most carefully prepared, and designed to be carried out at a moment when the people might be expected to be in affable and generous mood. This was on the occasion of the festival of the Lupercalia, held annually in Rome on 15 February. The whole city was
en fête
in celebration of this ancient fertility rite, whose origins were obscure but which almost certainly dated from Etruscan times. Caesar on his return from Africa had made a donation to the college of the priests of Lupercus for an additional college to be known as the Julian designed to celebrate his cult, and Mark Antony had been made its high priest. Lupercus, who was identified in later Roman eyes with the nature god Faunus, or Pan, represented the return of the spring and, by natural identification, the growth of plants, the mating of animals and fecundity in human beings. After the sacrifice of a goat and a dog, two young nobles who belonged to the Order of Lupercus cut the skins of these animals into strips known as
februa
(hence February) and, using them as whips, ran through the streets at the head of two bands of Luperci, striking out at every woman that they passed. The belief was that any woman so touched would become pregnant before the year was out and there was great competition between women who wanted to bear a child to be struck by the
februa.
On this occasion Caesar, as president of the ceremonies, was seated on his golden throne in the Forum, surrounded by all the notables of Rome, and Antony by chance (or by arrangement) was one of the leading Luperci. As custom decreed, he was wearing only a goatskin as, at the head of the dense crowd that always followed the “Faun-men,” he bounded into the Forum and hailed Caesar as Lupercus himself. He then ran forward and, mounting the rostrum, placed a crown on Caesar’s head. At this dramatic moment a claque of Caesar’s supporters, stationed throughout the Forum, shouted out and urged him to accept it. Caesar made a gesture of protest, but for a brief while the crown stayed upon his head. Then, the silence of those around him and the failure of the crowd to respond to the isolated cries of his supporters told him that the time was still not yet ripe. Caesar removed the crown, and the crowd burst into loud cheers. Concealing his disappointment (which must have been deep indeed) he gave orders that the crown should be placed upon the head of Jupiter’s statue in the Capitol, and that an entry should be made in the public records to the effect that: “On this day, acting on the wishes of people, Mark Antony offered Caesar the royal crown, but the Dictator refused to accept it.”

35

The Desired Death

THE weeks of February and early March were largely occupied with the preparations for the Parthian campaign. When so much still remained to be done in Rome and Italy, and when the various measures he had set in train all needed supervision, and when the line of petitioners at his house was such that even a former consul like Cicero had to wait a long time for admission, it might seem that the dictator’s time would be occupied for many months or even years in administration alone. This was probably what Caesar was eager to avoid. He wanted the simplicities of camp and campaign, where command was followed by obedience, orders by the sound of the trumpet and the disciplined maneuvers of trained men. In Rome all was plot and confusion, dissimulation and uncertainty and, as he now knew, above all the smell of fear and hatred. He who had always known that power could only be grasped in Rome and, since a young man, had always kept his eye on that objective, had now attained it in an almost immeasurable degree. In distant Britain, in Gaul, in Spain and Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt, he had never lost sight of his aim—Rome and power. Had he dreamed of the city?

The drip of water from the aqueduct that passed over the gate from which the dusty, squalid Appian Way stretched through its long suburb; the garret under the tiles where, just as now, the pigeons sleeked themselves in the sun and the rain drummed on the roof; the narrow, crowded streets, half choked with the builders* carts, and the pavements ringing under the heavy military boots of guardsmen; the tavern waiters trotting along with a pyramid of hot dishes on their heads; the flowerpots falling from high window ledges; night, with the shuttered shops, the silence broken by some street brawl, the darkness shaken by a flare of torches as some great man, wrapped in his scarlet cloak, passes along from a dinner-party with his long train of clients and slaves…

(J. W. Mackail)

That was Rome: violence, brutality, squalor and beauty—and power. And he had attained it to a degree such as no man in Rome before him had known; his head was on the city’s coinage; a queen who had borne his son waited with her court in his villa on the banks of the Tiber; and his legions waited for his further orders.

Six legions with their accompanying auxiliaries had already crossed the Adriatic and were ready at Apollonia. A further ten legions and ten thousand cavalry were assembling in the eastern provinces, for Caesar had no intention of having to fight on this great campaign with hastily improvised forces, as had so often been the case in the past. His aim was first to restore order to Macedonia, where the King of Dacia (Rumania and Hungary) had been advancing his borders, and then, after settling the frontier, to march through Asia Minor and attack Parthia via Armenia. The conquest of Parthia might well afford the extension of Roman rule to the Persian Gulf and even to India. He planned to return through the Caucasus and southern Russia and then, following the Danube, to annex further vast territories on his way back into Gaul.

The range and scope of this immense design was more suited to a giant or a demigod than any ordinary man, but Caesar had transcended mortal limits—and, in any case, can hardly have considered that he would ever return from a campaign of such limitless aggression. At his age, and in his state of health, he would be lucky indeed if he completed his conquest of Parthia. But then, perhaps the rumors that were circulating in Rome were true? It was being said that