Allan Massie: Caesar

Wine was offered, and produced with little almond cakes. We sat on a terrace overlooking a golden valley. The olive trees glimmered in the noon heat.

"Well?"

"Well," I said, "these are strange circumstances in which we meet."

"Very strange."

"You've done well," I said. "Antony is furious with you. And you've got Cicero to approve you. I admire you for that." "Cicero is respectable," he said. "And you're an adventurer." "I am Caesar's heir."

"Antony disputes that." "Naturally."

He was altogether at his ease. It was difficult to believe he was only nineteen. He still looked like the boy whom my caresses had delighted; his lips curved in the same enticing way. His skin glowed. He stretched out a bare leg and scratched his thigh.

"You've done extraordinarily well," I said.

"I know nothing, of course, about war," Maecenas, to my irritation, intervened. "It's not my thing at all. But politically we're ahead of the game."

He giggled.

"It'll come to war, though," I said, "and then where are you? Even politically, things are not quite as you think they are. You're proud of winning Cicero's support, and, as I said, that was a good move. But you can't trust him. Nobody has ever succeeded by trusting Cicero. Besides, have you heard what he's been saying? 'The boy must be flattered, decorated, and disposed of.' That's what he really thinks of you."

"Perhaps."

He bit into a peach. Juice trickled from the corner of his lips. He dabbed at it with a napkin.

"Cicero thinks he's using me," he said. "I think I'm using him. One of us will prove mistaken. Probably him. I've got an army, you see."

"Yes," I said, "and no experience of war, no experienced general."

"Are you proposing yourself, Mouse?" "Our interests are the same."

"Well, really, ducky, that's a bit of a whopper," Maecenas said. "You did kill Caesar, you know. Or have you forgotten? And we're out to avenge him. Least, that's what our men believe."

"There is a certain difficulty there, Mouse. You must see there is." Octavius smiled. "In the long run certainly."

"The immediate concern is Antony," I said. "He's your enemy and mine. He's ordered me to surrender my province, and you to surrender your legions."

"Oh, you know that, do you? All the same, I can work with Antony, once I've taught him to fear me."

"And how will you do that?"

"Any way that's necessary. That's something I learned from my father."

"Caesar, you mean?"

"Yes, Caesar, of course. I call him my father now, you know. It goes down well with the men…"

The shadow of dead Caesar fell on the table between us. Octavius turned away. His profile, chiselled against the distant hills, held my gaze. I remarked what I had never seen before: the set of his jaw.

"He's a god now, you know. I had that officially decreed. His altars rise all over the Empire, even in your province, I'm told."

"Yes," I said. "Foolery. Caesar would have laughed himself."

"I don't think so. He was prepared for deification. You call it 'foolery', Mouse, but I have legions to support it. And the Senate approves me; I was elected consul two weeks ago. Has that news reached you?"

"Quite an occasion," Maecenas said. "My dear, you should have seen it. Twelve vultures flew overhead as the dear boy took the auspices. Well, you can imagine how that delighted the crowd, especially since there were those quick to remind them that Romulus himself had been greeted in the same way."

"Foolery," I said again. "Who released the birds?"

"Does that matter?" Octavius said. "They flew."

"Something else you should know," Agrippa spoke for the first time. "We're going to rescind the amnesty offered Caesar's murderers. You've had it. Your number's up."

"More wine?" Octavius pushed the jug towards me, and smiled.

"You know what else Cicero said?" Maecenas laid his hand on my arm, resisting my effort to shake it off. "He asked, 'What god has given this godlike youth to the Roman people?'"

"So you see," the godlike youth smiled again, "the game is going my way, Mouse. I don't think you have anything to offer me."

Hope all but left me then, but I struggled on. Antony marched against me, forced me into Mutina, where we withstood a terrible siege that winter. His success alarmed Octavius, who persuaded the Senate to declare him a public enemy. In his alarm he made a new overture towards me. I responded as if I trusted him. But trust had died in the early autumn sunshine in the hills above Orvieto. Yet an alliance was constructed, an alliance of shifting interest, nothing more. The consuls-elect, Hirtius and Pansa, marched against Antony, compelling him to raise the siege. My ragged, half-starved soldiers emerged from the city where we had waited for death.

If I had had cavalry, if my poor legions had not been so weakened by their privations, if, if, if… Then I would have pursued Antony, and might still have snatched victory. But all I could do was urge Octavius to cut off Antony's jackal, Publius Ventidius, as he marched from Picenum with three veteran legions; but the boy failed, or chose to fail…

My last hope was to effect a union with Lucius Munatius Plancus, governor of Gallia Comata. I knew him for a time-server, but he had written to me deploring the state of the Republic and describing Antony as "a brigand". I pushed north over the pass of the Little St Bernard. At every stage of the march deserters slipped away. Food was in short supply, likewise money. A courier came from Cicero, addressing me as the last hope of the Republic in the West. He inveighed against Antony, against Octavius, against Fate. I read his missive as hope tumbled from me like the rocks that clattered down the Alpine hillsides.

I reached Grenoble and found Plancus there. He received me with smiles and soft words. His troops were fat; they looked on my scarecrows with wonder, horror and contempt. Plancus smiled as he insulted my enemies. "Young Caesar was a monster of odious ingratitude and ambition; Antony an unprincipled scoundrel; Lepidus a vain buffoon whose word was as worthless as a Greek whore's."

Or as Plancus' own. How can you rely on a man who will speak well of no one but himself?

On the eighth day trumpets sounded. They heralded the arrival of Caius Asinius Pollio with two legions. Pollio was an old comrade. He had been with me when we crossed the Rubicon, had fought by my side in Spain. When I greeted him, he said:

"I come from Antony."

"Oh," I said, "and Plancus has been waiting your arrival." "Just so."

"I am sorry," Plancus said, "but I really have no choice but to ally myself to Antony and Octavius."

I tried to argue my case. They would have none of it. When I said that Antony and Octavius had come together in a criminal conspiracy against the Republic, Pollio said:

"That's enough."

I withdrew to my camp, surprised that they permitted me that liberty.

That night, I slipped away, under cover of darkness, wind and rain. Only two centuries would follow me. The rest received my orders with dumb insolence and I was powerless to punish them.

My remnant of a plan was to make a wide circuit through the Alps and then head for Macedonia where Cassius was assembling an army. You know how it ended. Unable to deploy scouts (for I feared they too would desert) we were surprised, encircled, taken. The Gauls, when they learned who I was, looked on me with amazement.

And so night closed upon me. I have written to both Antony and Octavius, but am reconciled to death. My last wish is to avoid dishonour; therefore I have penned this history of my engagement in the death of Caesar. Should it survive, I am confident that posterity will judge me a true servant of the Republic.

I warned Antony to beware of Octavius. "The boy will be your master," I said, "and you only his accomplice in the destruction of liberty which alone gives meaning to life."