Стивен Сейлор - The Throne of Caesar

“The bravest warrior … died unarmed. The most beloved bringer of peace … died defenseless. The wisest of all judges … died because lesser men decided his fate .

“No enemy of Rome was ever able to bring him down, though his exploits gave them many a chance. Once I asked him what had been the closest of his many close scrapes with death. It was in Alexandria, he said, when in the midst of battle his ship sank in the harbor. Enemy ships converged on him. Spears and arrows and catapulted stones fell all around him. Dead men littered the water. The churning waves were red with blood, as red as his crimson cape, which he refused to abandon, though the weight of it dragged at him with every stroke and threatened to drown him. When at last he reached the shore, by some miracle still alive, any other man would have been shaken and exhausted, weeping with relief. What did Caesar do? Without missing a breath he resumed his command and carried the day for Rome.

“It was not the fate of Caesar to die in battle that day, nor ever to die in battle. As I say, no foreign enemy killed him, though many tried. He was killed by fellow citizens, by Romans, by comrades. Slain not by foes but by friends!”

Antony’s words had so stirred the crowd that the sound of men shouting had become continuous, like the weeping that never stopped. It was a testament to his oratorical powers that I was still able to hear every word he said, even above the growing roar of the mob.

“Here he lies now, here in the Forum through which so many times he paraded in glorious triumph. Here lies his mute body on the platform from which so many times he spoke to you. Does it seem impossible that great Caesar is dead? I assure you he is, for I have seen with my own eyes the blank, lifeless eyes of his corpse. I have seen and counted the many cuts that scar his body—so many, so horrible to look at.…”

“Show us!” people cried. “Show us the body!”

“I cannot,” said Antony. “The wishes of the widow must be respected. She doesn’t want your last image of Caesar to be the mangled remains fit now only for the flames. Nor would Caesar want that. Look instead at the masks on those men who represent his triumphs, remember his serene countenance in life, imagine that he still lives and looks kindly upon you— ”

The shouting grew louder. “No! Show us the body! Show us what the killers did to him!”

Antony seemed to hesitate, torn by indecision. Again I thought that he might step up to the golden shrine, yank away the cloth, lay hands on Caesar’s torn and crumpled body, and hold it up for all to see. I held my breath, imagining the effect on the furious crowd.

Instead, Antony did something even more provocative. He laid aside the will, which he had been clutching all this time, using it to jab the air for emphasis. With both hands he took hold of the pole on which Caesar’s effigy was mounted. He raised the effigy high in the air and strode from one end of the Rostra to the other, back and forth, turning the effigy to show all sides of it.

“I cannot show you the body,” Antony shouted, “but I can show you the toga he wore on the last day of his life. Every place the fabric is torn and stained with blood marks the cut of a dagger that ripped his flesh. So many daggers! So much blood!”

The effect on the crowd was like a thunderbolt from heaven. The sound of weeping, wailing, moaning, screaming, shouting, and the banging of swords on shields was deafening. Never had I heard such a din. Antony continued to stride back and forth across the platform, holding up the effigy. His mouth moved, but I could no longer hear him. For one uncanny instant, the face of the effigy was turned in such a way that it seemed to look straight at me. The illusion of seeing Caesar again—reduced to nothing more than a head and torso, draped in bloody purple and gold—was so bizarre and so powerful that I felt disconnected from the moment, detached even from myself.

Cinna shouted in my ear. “This is even worse than I imagined. Much worse. We must get out of here at once!”

“Easier said than done,” I muttered, coming to my senses and looking all around. The crowd had become a shouting, surging mob.

I saw the flicker of flames from the corner of my eye and looked at the speaker’s platform. Men with torches had joined Antony on the Rostra .

“Burn him here!” I heard people shout. “Right here in the Forum! Burn him as Clodius was burned!”

Someone nearby shouted, “Burn down the houses of every assassin! Burn the killers! Set them on fire and watch them burn!”

His eyes wide with alarm, Davus clutched my arm to keep me from being swept away. Cinna clutched my other arm and hissed in my ear, “These fools will burn down the city!”

I looked again at the Rostra. Antony and the effigy on a pole had vanished. More men with torches appeared. Others set about removing the body of Caesar from the golden shrine. Was this what Antony intended? Fulvia had seen Clodius cremated in the midst of the Forum. Was Caesar to be burned there as well?

“There!” cried Davus. “I think I see a way out.” He turned to Cinna’s bodyguard. “The two of us together can clear a path.”

The man nodded. The two of them stepped into a rift that had opened in the mob and elbowed their way forward. Like boys following their elders, Cinna and I clutched at their garments and did our best to keep up.

A tremor of fear swept over me. Death seemed very close.

XLIV

At every turn, voices screamed in my ears. Elbows and knees assaulted me. Faces made hideous by hatred and grief flashed by me, each more contorted and unnerving than the last, like an endless procession of hideous tragedy masks. These were interspersed with shadowy faces I couldn’t see—more of those hooded figures that had alarmed me early on.

At some point I was struck by something larger and more unyielding than an elbow. I realized it was a piece of wooden furniture—a chair. Then another piece of furniture went by, a bookcase on its side with a single forlorn-looking scroll still clinging to its pigeonhole. I barely managed to dodge the massive piece. Had I been knocked down I would surely have been trampled.

“What in Hades?” shouted Cinna.

“Fuel for the fire!” I shouted back. “It was the same when they burned Clodius—the mob looted every building nearby for anything that would burn.”

The men carrying furniture seemed to be heading in one direction, while we were heading in another. That seemed good. But when I looked around for a familiar landmark, I realized we were no nearer the outskirts of the Forum than we had been when we started. The mob seemed to have carried us in a circle. We were like leaves in a vortex.

“Where is Davus?” I shouted, realizing I had lost hold of his tunic. I couldn’t see him ahead of us. “And your man, Cinna? Where are they?”

“I don’t know! I can’t see either of them!” His shout was close to a wail, verging on panic.

I smelled a wood fire, then heard a great roar that had to be the excited cry of the mob as the first flames leaped up. A makeshift funeral pyre had been built somewhere, perhaps quite nearby. Our goal now must be to head in any direction away from it. But where was it? I could see no flames, only smell the smoke. There were other scents as well—the flowers and aromatic herbs that had been part of Caesar’s bier, now set aflame and smoking. How long would it be until we smelled his burning flesh?

More chairs and bookcases went by, as well as tables, cabinets, and curtains. Cinna and I both managed to dodge these moving obstacles, but not everyone was so lucky. More than once I stepped on flesh and heard a scream of pain, but there was no way to stop and help whatever poor mortal had fallen. The surge of the crowd was too strong.