The Ides of March (22 page)

Fascinated and swayed by such a powerful example, the other conspirators, one after another, exchanged daggers with the man each considered his best and most trusted friend.

‘None of us have ever made a similar pact,’ Cassius said then, ‘but I saw it done one day at Pharsalus after we lost the battle. I saw father and son kill each other and their deaths were instantaneous. They fell to the ground in the same moment, one alongside the other.

‘This is how we’ll proceed: one of the two will signal by nodding his head, and the blades will penetrate in the same instant. The friends who are absent this evening will choose a partner with whom to share an honourable death as well. I’ll tell them myself.

‘Now let us return to our homes,’ he said finally. ‘We shall sleep soundly knowing that we fight for a just cause.’

He regarded each of his companions again, a haggard look in his cold, grey eyes, then left them.

15

Romae, in Domo Publica, a.d. III Id. Mart., prima vigilia

Rome, the residence of the Pontifex Maximus, 13 March, first guard shift, seven p.m.

C
AESAR WAS
getting ready to meet with his officers. He was wearing a simple knee-length fatigue tunic, like the one he used during his military campaigns, cinched at the waist by a leather belt with an iron buckle. A servant was just lacing up his boots. He gave him a quick look to make sure his clothing was in order, then asked, ‘Anything else, master?’

‘See if you can do something to my hair,’ replied Caesar, looking at himself in the mirror.

The servant combed it slightly forward to partially hide the early stages of baldness.

There was a knock at the door and Silius Salvidienus appeared.

‘Are they here?’ asked Caesar.

‘Yes, they’re all downstairs. Calpurnia is offering them drinks.

Aemilius Lepidus, Decimus Brutus, Mark Antony, Caius Trebonius and the others. They appear to be in a jolly mood.’

‘Have places been assigned at the table?’

‘As you’ve requested. Decimus Brutus at your right, Mark Antony at your left.’

Caesar seemed to ponder this for a few moments.

‘Is something wrong, commander?’

‘If Labienus were here, he would be sitting at my right.’

‘Labienus is dead, commander, and you paid him the respects due to a faithful friend and a valiant enemy.’

‘Fine, then. We can go downstairs.’

Caesar could see in Silius’s face that he had something more to say, so he dismissed the servant.

‘What is it?’ he asked warily.

‘It’s not pleasant, I’m afraid. It’s going to irritate you.’

‘Well, let’s have it, then.’

‘There’s someone who is passing around an interpretation of the Sibylline Books which claims that only a king can defeat and subjugate the Parthians.’

Caesar shook his head and sat down, crossing his arms. He sighed. ‘So that’s how far it’s gone. This I would never have expected.’

‘It’s a serious matter, commander. Another bit of slander meant to alert the people to your presumed intention of establishing a monarchy in Rome and in the empire. Whoever it is is trying to isolate you and thus weaken you. A king would be loathed by the people and the Senate alike. Remember the Lupercalia festival. You told me yourself that most of the crowd were scandalized when you were offered the royal crown.’

‘Do you know the source of this falsehood?’

‘No.’

‘Which means it will be attributed directly to me. I am the Pontifex Maximus and thus the custodian of the Sibylline Books, from where this oracle is said to come.’

‘Commander, the intention of harming you is explicit. You must defend yourself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That your enemies are preparing something. Rumour has it that in one of the coming senatorial sessions a proposal will be put forward to proclaim you king.’

Caesar said nothing but his eyes were like those of a lion being stalked by hunters. From downstairs came the voices of the high commanders of his army, those men who were preparing to conquer the rest of the world.

Silius sensed that it was time to make his move. ‘May I ask you a question?’

‘Let’s hear it,’ said Caesar.

‘Has anyone, in these last few days, attempted to put you on your guard against something?’

Caesar gave an involuntary shudder and Silius felt that he was about to share an important confidence that would allow him to ask more questions.

‘I don’t mean an explicit declaration,’ he added. ‘A veiled allusion, perhaps? Doesn’t anything come to mind, commander?’

Caesar could see the raving expression of Spurinna, the augur, hissing at him, ‘Beware the Ides of March!’ but he turned calmly to Silius and said, ‘We have to go downstairs. They’re waiting for us.’

He took a scroll from the table entitled
The Anabasis of Cyrus
and started down the stairs.

Silius followed him and, before entering the meeting hall, stopped to listen to the enthusiastic welcome Caesar was receiving: military salutes, shouts of greeting, barracks banter. Then Caesar’s voice, sharp as a sword: ‘Commanders of the legions of Rome, magistrates, masters of the cavalry and auxiliaries!’

‘Caesar!’ they all replied in unison.

It felt as though the lion had leapt into the circle of hunters.

T
HE MEETING
went on until late, a good two hours. Caesar began with the
Anabasis
. He summarized Xenophon’s account of the expedition of the ten thousand Greek soldiers who, four centuries earlier, had made it nearly all the way to Babylon without striking a blow, but immediately pointed out that things had changed considerably since then, and that Crassus’s army had been wiped out just ten years earlier by the Parthians at Carrhae. This was the main objective of the mission: to avenge the massacre of Carrhae. Rome had been humiliated, the triumvir defeated, thousands of her most valiant soldiers killed, her Eagles lost. But this would be only the beginning. The Parthians constituted a perennial threat, so the problem must be solved once and for all.

He went on to describe the tactical and strategic aspects of the expedition. He took, from a case already sitting on the table, the map that Publius Sextius had provided him with. A copy of the ancient Road of the King, it included all the other roads and caravan routes that crossed the vast territory of the Parthian empire, stretching all the way to Armenia, to Sarmatia, Media and Bactriana. He laid the map on the table and the members of the war council were awed by a masterpiece of geographical expertise the likes of which they had never seen.

Each one of them, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, eagerly regarded this vision of the eastern part of the world. Each one made his comments, with those who already knew something of the Orient tracing their fingers over the rivers, lakes, seas and mountains they recognized.

Then it was Caesar’s turn. His officers followed the tip of his index finger as he drew out the lines of march and the attack routes on the parchment sheet painted in natural colours: brown for the mountains, bright green for the rivers, lakes and seas, light green for the plains, ochre for the deserts. The place names in Persian had been carefully transcribed in Latin in an even hand.

His plan was to attack on two different fronts, from Syria and from Armenia, converging his forces in a pincer on the capital, Ctesiphon.

The problems to consider, Caesar said, were the enemy cavalry and the double-curved bows the Parthians used, which could strike from a considerable distance. He pointed out that even if Crassus had won at Carrhae and had pushed on into enemy territory, his chances of succeeding would have been slight. Lost in the immensity of the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts, deprived of his own cavalry, the army would have been easy prey for the continuous onslaughts of squads of enemy archers on horseback. Their tactics were to attack, strike and retreat, without ever engaging the infantry in hand-to-hand battle. This had been reported by a man who had miraculously survived the massacre, hidden under a pile of bodies.

As Caesar proceeded with his explanations, Silius noticed that some of those present were looking more at him than at the map. They were watching his expression rather than listening to his words. Why? What were they trying to read in their commander’s face?

His strength, decided Silius; they were trying to gauge how much strength remained in that wrinkled brow, those eyes, that jaw, in his fisted hands leaning on the table.

Antony seemed the most attentive to Caesar’s strategic plan, even interrupting him to ask for clarification. He seemed to be truly eager to leave on this Parthian expedition and play the role of subordinate commander in the vast theatre of operations. The others weren’t showing real interest, as if they didn’t believe it would happen. Decimus Brutus, for instance, was constantly talking under his breath to Caius Trebonius, making comments Silius would have liked to hear.

Perhaps Antony wanted to prove to Caesar – who had been treating him rather coldly since the Lupercalia incident, and who had seated him on his left at the table – that he was still his best officer, the only one among them capable of conducting wide-ranging, important operations. To let Caesar know he had been wrong to shut him out.

Silius himself was convinced of Antony’s military worth, but still wondered about his behaviour at the festival. Had he been acting on his own initiative? Had he merely made a mistake, a glaring error of judgement? Could one believe that Antony had truly meant it as a sincere gesture of admiration? Offering Caesar the king’s crown in order to say later that he had been the only one to openly acknowledge Caesar’s true worth? Could it have been a calculated ploy to become Caesar’s most trusted man, the most powerful in the empire after him?

Anything was possible, but nothing was convincing, because Antony was not a stupid man.

He could not have been unaware of the risks involved in making such a public gesture in front of such a large crowd. In the Senate it was a different matter, for here there was a relatively select group of aristocrats, most of whom owed everything to Caesar and bent over backwards to praise him. But not the people. Antony must have realized that suddenly forcing them to accept a choice that was universally felt to be scandalous, if not repugnant and even perfectly useless, was a huge risk. Not only because their reaction would be unpredictable, but even more so because the move had not been approved by Caesar himself. Silius believed Caesar when he said he had not been consulted. So what was the meaning behind the gesture, then? Had Antony acted on his own or was there someone behind him?

Although Silius had been over all this again and again, these thoughts kept crowding his mind and he was ashamed to realize he was not listening more closely to his commander as he illustrated his plans for universal conquest.

His generals were urging Caesar on now, enjoining him to conquer the whole world. They were raving about his plans, pressing him to undertake further exploits, to push past the boundaries of the inhabited world, to take on the desolate stretches of Sarmatia, the vast deserts of Persia and Bactriana, to follow the dreams of Alexander the Great. Now there was a model for you: larger than life, always victorious . . .

Silius Salvidienus was watching Caesar’s face in the midst of this frenzy of excitement. His grey eyes were lit intermittently by a tired glow; otherwise they expressed mainly weariness and almost unbearable strain. These were the eyes of a man who could move only towards the impossible or towards death.

Both were undesirable outcomes.

The session ended in an atmosphere of general euphoria and Caesar announced he would convene the Senate for the morning of the Ides of March. There were various matters that would have to be finalized, some routine and others representing important new developments.

Caesar accompanied his guests to the door personally. As he was leaving, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus took his hand and said, ‘I’m expecting you for dinner tomorrow night, then. I hope you haven’t forgotten.’

‘How could I forget?’ replied Caesar. ‘It wouldn’t be wise to neglect the invitation of a man who has an entire legion in fighting order at his command!’

Lepidus laughed as the others slipped past one by one, meeting the escorts they had waiting outside.

Silius’s glance happened to fall on Antony as he was exchanging a few words with his servants. That seemed odd to him, as did Antony’s expression. He turned to Caesar and said, ‘Commander, if you don’t need me at the moment, there are a few things I have to look after.’

Caesar grinned. ‘At this hour? How can I say no? What’s she like? Blonde or brunette?’

‘Brunette, commander,’ replied Silius with the hint of a smile.

‘Be sure to distinguish yourself in the line of duty, then.’

‘You can count on that, commander,’ replied Silius, trying to assume a rakish air. ‘The Thirteenth never disappoints!’

He crossed the threshold, but before leaving turned around, serious again: ‘Commander . . . there may be another explanation.’

‘For what?’

‘For that rumour about the Sibylline Books. Maybe it’s not someone who wants to isolate you or discredit you – or rather, maybe that’s not all. Maybe someone is trying to force your hand . . .’

Caesar said nothing.

Silius gave a nod and walked off into the dark.

S
LIPPING BETWEEN
the northern corner of the Domus and the House of the Vestals, Silius lingered in the shadows at the edge of the halo of light cast by a couple of tripods beside the entrance. He was keeping an eye on Antony’s litter and the two armed bodyguards escorting him with lanterns in hand. The small convoy set off on the same road that Lepidus was taking towards the Tiber Island at first, but then turned left on the riverbank at the Sublicius Bridge, bound towards the portico of a small shipyard. Where was Mark Antony headed?

Silius followed at a safe distance, conveniently shielded by the big alders that lined the southern bank of the river. The darkness hid him, while Antony’s litter was easily visible thanks to the lanterns his bodyguards held high to light their way and to frighten off muggers and thieves.