Allan Massie: Caesar

"You might. He asks whether there was anyone but Antony who did not desire Caesar's death, and is there anyone but Antony who is not happy on account of what has happened? I'm not so certain he is right to make the exception."

"That's as may be. I'm still amazed you let yourself be led by the nose. By your father-in-law of all men! I would have credited you with too much sense to get involved in such a ham-fisted, botched affair."

"Thank you, Antony. Certain things would have been better managed if my advice had been taken."

"Meaning I'd have shared Caesar's fate?"

"Meaning you'd have been removed from circulation, shall we say."

"Thanks. But since I'm still in circulation, in my way of looking at it, I'm the man who's got to tidy things up and restore some degree of rational control."

We might fence like old comrades but the dinner was awkward. It could not fail to be; it was as if Caesar's body lay naked and bleeding on the table while we carved up his inheritance. Hirtius was near weeping.

"I would never have thought it of you," he said to me, time and again.

Antony smiled, extended his hand, closed his fingers tight.

"I could have you all hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, and the mob would yell in glee. Don't think it's beyond me. As consul, I command the armies of Rome."

"With your colleague Dolabella," Cassius remarked.

"Don't give me that. Ask Mouse here which of us the soldiers will obey."

"There's no question."

"There's Lepidus," Cassius said.

"If you think I can't control that fool, you're a fool yourself. There never was such a botched business."

"Hardly that," Cassius said. "Caesar is dead."

"And your lives are mine. I'm tempted, I admit it. But relax. For now. For one thing your benighted crew includes friends of mine, Mouse here chief of all. Thank the stars you don't believe in, Cassius, that you've got Mouse on your side. Otherwise…"

He cracked a walnut. The shell shattered.

"And you all have families, connections. I've no wish to copy Sulla. I agree with Caesar in loathing that example. And I grant that you may too. Otherwise you wouldn't have stopped at Caesar. So: no proscriptions. Rome's had its bellyful of citizens' blood. Besides — this'll shock Hirtius — I wasn't nuts about Caesar myself."

He beamed on us, and tossed back another mug of wine.

"Oh, he was a genius, granted. He dazzled me, like he dazzled everyone. But I wasn't crazy about him. Not sure I even liked him."

"Liking's a pointless word applied to Caesar," I said.

"Fair enough. Oh I felt his charm. Who again didn't? But — Mouse knows — I agreed with him that the old boy was going off his rocker. This Parthian campaign. Well, thank you for saving us from that. So why did I stick to him? Why did I pretend I didn't understand the hints Mouse dropped? Simple: he may have been heading to be a tyrant, but he wasn't one yet. And he maintained order, which, in spite of my private life, I value as the first public good. Tyranny's more tolerable than civil war. We've all seen too much of that. So that's why you're here. So we can work out how to avoid civil war, how to divvy up the State. All right?"

Cassius sniffed, as if Antony had emitted a bad smell.

"You're plausible," he said. "That's why I find it hard to trust you. But I'll try if you can answer me this: that… that charade at the Lupercal. Can you explain that?"

Antony laughed. I remember wondering if there was any other laughter in Rome that night.

"Easy. I was playing silly buggers. Besides, it was Himself's idea. He was trying out the people. If it had gone right — for him — what difference, eh? What's in a name — King, Caesar, Perpetual Dictator — it all comes to the same bloody thing. Besides, I was pissed. You can't hold that against me…"

At such moments I loved Antony: for his vitality, his refusal to take himself absolutely seriously, for being the opposite of Markie, and — yes, I still say it — a better, more honourable man. For his laughter. Markie couldn't laugh. I am melancholic myself; Antony supplied a lack in me. Then he outlined his proposals. They surprised Cassius, who despised, and therefore failed to understand, him.

"They'll do," I said, "if you're sincere."

"Sincere?" Antony laughed. "Do you doubt me? Your old mucker?"

As we left, Hirtius plucked me by the sleeve.

"Why? Why? Why, Decimus Brutus? If Caesar loved any man" (it was a big "if" of course) "he loved you. I wish we may be able to rely on Antony, but his judgment, his character… oh dear. But who else is there?"

"You can rely on me, Hirtius. We have always been friends."

"Yes," he said. "But you would have spoken the same words to Caesar."

"I never dared call Caesar friend."

Resentment, suspicion, fear and rancour poisoned the Senate.

Tiberius Claudius Nero, partisan in succession of Pompey and Caesar, unstable as water, rose to propose: "Public and exemplary honours for the noble tyrannicides." Some cheered, others shifted in their seats, others howled him down. I was ready to deprecate the motion, t o appease Caesar's friends. But Antony got in first, silencing Nero with a gesture that dismissed the motion without debate: "Neither honours nor punishment." The thing was done, the deed committed; no good would come from dwelling on it. We must look ahead, to ensure the stability of the Republic. Therefore — he brushed a lock of hair aside — the office of dictator should be abolished, that we might never find ourselves in such straits again; all should be confirmed in their offices and appointments, both actual and designate; finally, though it was accepted that Caesar had been killed by honourable and patriotic citizens, nevertheless all his acts — even projects as yet unpublished — should have the force of law.

He smiled on us.

"I warn you, friends, that if you don't accept this last measure, we shall be in the deuce of a legal pickle."

I could see Markie itching to speak. Silence was painful to him. He bobbed up as Antony sat down, but found himself unable to do more than reiterate the sentiments he had expressed in the Forum (though the time for that was past and anyway they sounded even emptier when deployed before a more intelligent audience), and then support everything Antony had proposed.

Cicero couldn't be kept down either. He called for a general amnesty, to include even Sextus Pompey and his gang. He too supported Antony's measures, though, such was his antipathy to him, he contrived to do so without mentioning him by name or title, and even managed to convey the impression that the proposals were all his own. One could not fail to admire his old rhetorical skill, and even Antony was more amused than resentful of this insolence.

Calpurnia's father, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, then urged that Caesar's will should be published and that he be granted a public funeral.

Such was the mood of relief that even this dangerous proposal was carried, and indeed Cicero rose again to support it.

"We must create a new concord in the Republic, commencing here in the Senate, Conscript Fathers," he said.

It was an old tune, reassuring in its familiarity; unfortunately he failed, as he had failed for forty years, to explain how this desirable consummation was to be achieved.

It had gone too easily, as if Caesar could sink without trace. Markie swelled in fatuous complacency. He held court in front of the Temple of Tellus; senators, knights, ordinary citizens crowded round him, taking up the refrain of "Noble Brutus".

"Bloody fool," Casca said. "He believes them, you know. We've buggered it, haven't we, old dear?"

"Yes."

"Well, I never thought we wouldn't. But it had to be done." "Yes," I said, "but we've buggered it."

We had lost our chance of gaining an ascendancy in the Senate, though we had had, I think, a majority. The fate of the wretched Cinna showed the mood of the people. We had no troops at our command, and so depended on the continuing goodwill of Antony, even Lepidus. We were to be punished for our lack of foresight, for our scruples too. We had even failed to suborn Dolabella. Cassius would have none of that. Dolabella, he had said, was a mischief-maker, like all his family, not to be trusted.