Colleen McCullough - 6. The October Horse - A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra

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After Decimus Brutus, Gaius Trebonius, Tillius Cimber and Staius Murcus left for their provinces, Rome's attention became focused on the two senior praetors, Brutus and Cassius. A few shrinking ventures into the Forum to test the atmosphere with a view to presiding at their tribunals had convinced the pair that to absent themselves was more sensible. The Senate had granted each of them a fifty-man bodyguard of lictors minus fasces, which served only to increase their visibility. "Leave Rome until feelings die down," Servilia advised. "If your faces aren't seen, people will forget them." She gave a snort of laughter. "Two years from now, you could run for consul without anyone's remembering that you murdered Caesar." "It was not murder, it was a right act!" Porcia shouted. "Shut up, you," Servilia said placidly; she could afford to be generous, she was well and truly winning the war. Porcia had handed it to her on a platter by growing steadily madder. "To leave Rome is to admit guilt," said Cassius. "I say we have to stick it out." Brutus was torn. The public half of him agreed with Cassius, whereas the private half dwelled wistfully upon an existence without his mother, whose mood hadn't improved after she gave Pontius Aquila his marching orders. "I'll think about it," he said. His way of thinking about it was to seek an interview with Mark Antony, who looked as if he was capable of containing all opposition. The result, Brutus decided, of the fact that the Senate, full of Caesar's creatures, had turned to Antony as to its guiding star. Comforting then to know that Antony really had accommodated the Liberators in every way. He was on their side. "What do you think, Antonius?" Brutus asked, big brown eyes as sad as ever. "It's no part of our intention to contest you or proper, ethical Republican government. Personally, I found your abolition of the dictatorship enormously reassuring. If you feel that good government would be assisted by our absence, then I'll talk Cassius into going." "Cassius has to go anyway," Antony said, frowning. "He's a third of his way into the foreign praetorship and he hasn't yet heard a case anywhere except in Rome." "Yes, I understand that," said Brutus, "but for me, it's a different matter. As urban praetor, I can't leave Rome for more than ten days at a time." "Oh, we can find a way around that," Antony said comfortably. "My brother Gaius has been acting as urban praetor ever since the Ides of March not hard, as you'd issued your edicta which, by the way, he says are excellent. He can go on doing the job." "For how long?" Brutus asked, feeling as if he were being swept along on an irresistible tide. "Between you and me?" "Yes." "At least four more months." "But," Brutus protested, aghast, "that would mean I wouldn't be in Rome to hold the ludi Apollinares in Quinctilis!" "Not Quinctilis," Antony said gently. "Julius." "You mean Julius is to stay in place?" Antony's little white teeth gleamed. "Certainly." "Would Gaius Antonius be willing to celebrate Apollo's games in my name? Naturally I will be funding them." "Of course, of course!" "Stage the plays I specify? I have definite ideas." "Of course, my dear fellow." Brutus made up his mind. "Then will you ask the Senate to excuse me from my duties for an indefinite period of time?" "First thing tomorrow," said Antony. "It's really better this way," he added as he accompanied Brutus to the door. "Let the people grieve for Caesar without reminders."

"I was wondering how long Brutus would last," Antony said to Dolabella later that same day. "The number of Liberators still inside Rome is steadily declining." "With the exception of Decimus Brutus and Gaius Trebonius, they're paltry men," Dolabella said contemptuously. "I'll grant you Decimus and Trebonius, but Trebonius isn't a problem now he's scuttled off to Asia Province. The one who does worry me is Decimus. He's a cut above the others for ability as well as birth, and we shouldn't forget that under Caesar's dictates he's consul with Plancus the year after next." Antony's frown gathered. "He could prove very dangerous. As one of Caesar's heirs, he has the power to collect at least some of Caesar's clients. While he's up there in Italian Gaul, he's among vast quantities of them." "Cacat! So he is!" cried Dolabella. "Caesar secured the full citizenship for those who live on the far side of the Padus, and now that Pompeius Magnus is out of the client equation, Caesar's inherited those who live on this side of the Padus as well. Would you care to bet that Decimus isn't going among them wooing them into his clientele?" "No," said Dolabella very seriously, "I wouldn't care to bet one sestertius on it. Jupiter! Here was I thinking of Italian Gaul as a province without any legions, when all the time it's stuffed with Caesar's veterans! The best of them, at that those who have already been allocated land, and those who have family holdings. Italian Gaul was Caesar's best recruiting ground." "Exactly. What's more, I've heard that those among them who enlisted under Caesar's Eagles for the Parthian war are starting to go home already. My crack legions are holding, but the other nine are definitely losing cohorts from Italian Gaul. And they're not coming home through Brundisium. They're marching through Illyricum, a few at a time." "Are you saying Decimus is recruiting already?" "I honestly don't know. All I'm prepared to say is that it behooves me to keep a close eye on Italian Gaul."

Brutus left Rome on the ninth day of April, but not alone. Porcia and Servilia insisted upon coming too. After an extremely trying night spent in the main hostelry at Bovillae just fourteen miles down the Via Appia from the Servian Walls of Rome Brutus had had enough. "I refuse to travel with you one moment longer," he said to Servilia. "Tomorrow you have two choices. Either you will enter the carriage I've hired to take you to Tertulla in Antium, or tell the driver to take you back to Rome. Porcia is going with me, but you are not." Servilia gave a twisted smile. "I shall go to Antium and wait until you admit that you can't make the right decisions without me," she said. "Without me, Brutus, you're an utter idiot. Look at what's happened to you since you listened to Cato's daughter ahead of your mother." Thus Servilia went to Tertulla at Antium, while Brutus and Porcia moved on a little way from Bovillae to his villa outside the small Latin town of Lanuvium, where, had they wished to look up the mountainside, they might have gazed at Caesar's daring villa on its massive piers. "I think Caesar's choosing an eighteen-year-old as his heir was very clever," said Brutus to Porcia as they dined alone. "Clever? I think it was remarkably foolish," said Porcia. "Antonius will make mincemeat out of Gaius Octavius." "That's just the point. Antonius doesn't need to," Brutus said patiently. "Loathe the man I might, but the only mistake Caesar ever made was in dismissing his lictors. Don't you see, Porcia? Caesar settled on someone so young and inexperienced that no one, no matter how deluded by imagined persecutions, will consider him a rival. On the other hand, the youth possesses all Caesar's money and estates. Perhaps for as many as twenty years, Gaius Octavius will seem no danger to anyone. He'll have time to grow and mature. Instead of selecting the biggest tree in the whole forest, Caesar planted a seed for the future. His money and estates will water that seed, give it nourishment, permit it to grow quietly and provoke no one to chop it down. In effect, his message to Rome and to his heir is that in time there will be another Caesar." He shivered. "The lad must have many traits in common with Caesar, many qualities that Caesar saw and admired. So twenty years from now, another Caesar will emerge from the forest's shadows. Yes, very clever." "They say Gaius Octavius is an effeminate weakling," Porcia said, kissing her husband's wrinkled brow. "I doubt that very much, my dear. I know my Caesar better than I know my Homer." "Are you going to lie down tamely under this banishment?" she demanded, returning to her favorite topic. "No," Brutus said calmly. "I've sent Cassius a message that I intend to draft a statement on both our behalves, addressed to all of Italy's towns and communities. It will say that we acted in their best interests, and beg for their support. I don't want Antonius to think that we're without support just because we gave in and left Rome." "Good!" said Porcia, pleased.