Colleen McCullough - 5. Caesar

The next morning Caesar called a council consisting of all the legates, prefects, military tribunes and centurions present to participate in Gaul's last gasp. Including Aulus Hirtius, who had traveled with the two legions Quintus Fufius Calenus brought after the assault on the spring began. "I'll be brief," he said, seated on his curule chair in full military dress, the ivory rod of his imperium lying up his right forearm. Perhaps it was the light in the citadel's meeting hall, for it poured in through a great unshuttered aperture behind the five hundred assembled men and fell directly upon Caesar's face. He was not yet fifty, but his long neck was deeply ringed with creases, though no sagging skin marred the purity of his jaw. Lines crossed his forehead, fanned out at the far edges of his eyes, carved fissures down either side of his nose, emphasized the high, sharply defined cheekbones by cleaving the skin of his face below them. On campaign he bothered not at all about his thinning hair, but today he had donned his Civic Crown of oak leaves because he wanted to set a mood of unassailable authority; when he entered a room wearing it, every person had to stand and applaud him even Bibulus and Cato. Because of it he had entered the Senate at twenty years of age; because of it every soldier who ever served under him knew that Caesar had fought in the front line with sword and shield, though the men of his Gallic legions had seen him in the front line fighting with them on many occasions, didn't need to be reminded. He looked desperately tired, but no man there mistook these signs for physical weariness; he was a superbly fit and enormously strong man. No, he was suffering a mental and emotional exhaustion; they all realized it. And wondered at it. "It is the end of September. Summer is with us," he said in a clipped, terse accent which stripped the cadences in his exquisitely chosen Latin of any poetic intention, "and if this were two or three years ago, one would say that the war in Gaul was over at last. But all of us who sit here today know better. When will the people of Gallia Comata admit defeat? When will they settle down under the light hand of Roman supervision and admit that they are safe, protected, united as never before? Gaul is a bull whose eyes have been put out, but not its anger. It charges blindly time and time again, ruining itself on walls, rocks, trees. Growing steadily weaker, yet never growing calmer. Until in the end it must die, still dashing itself to pieces." The room was utterly still; no one moved, even cleared his throat. Whatever was coming was going to matter. "How can we calm this bull? How can we persuade it to be still, to let us apply the ointments and heal it?" The tone of his voice changed, became more somber. "None of you, including the most junior centurion, is unaware of the terrible difficulties I face in Rome. The Senate is after my blood, my bones, my spirit... and my dignitas, my personal share of public worth and standing. Which is also your dignitas, because you are my people. The sinews of my beloved army. When I fall, you fall. When I am disgraced, you are disgraced. That is an omnipresent threat, but it is not why I am speaking. A by-product, no more. I mention it to reinforce what I am about to say." He drew a breath. "I will not see my command extended. On the Kalends of March in the year after next, it will end. It may be that on the Kalends of March next year, it will end, though I will exert every ounce of myself to prevent that. I need next year to do the administrative work necessary to transform Gallia Comata into a proper Roman province. Therefore this year must see this futile, pointless, wasteful war finished for good. It gives me no pleasure to witness the battlefields after the battles are over, for there are Roman bodies lying on them too. And so many, many Gauls, Belgae and Celtae both. Dead for no good reason beyond a dream they have neither the education nor the foresight to make come true. As Vercingetorix would have found out had he been the one to win." He got to his feet and stood with hands clasped behind his back, frowning. "I want to see the war ended this year. Not a merely temporary cessation of hostilities, but a genuine peace. A peace which will last for longer than any man in this room will live, or his children after him, or their children after them. If that doesn't happen, the Germani will conquer, and the history of Gaul will be different history. As will the history of our beloved Italia, for the Germani will not rest with the conquest of Gaul. The last time they came, Rome threw up Gaius Marius. I believe Rome has thrown up me at this time and in this place to make sure the Germani never come again. Gallia Comata is the natural frontier, not the Alps. We must keep the Germani on the far side of the Rhenus if our world, including the world of Gaul, is to prosper." He paced a little, came to stand in the center of his space again, and looked at them from beneath his fair brows. A long, measured, immensely serious stare. "Most of you have served with me for a very long time. All of you have served with me long enough to know what sort of man I am. Not a naturally cruel man. It gives me no pleasure to see pain inflicted, or have to order it inflicted. But I have come to the conclusion that Gaul of the Long-hairs needs a lesson so awful, so severe, so appalling that the memory of it will linger through the generations and serve to discourage future uprisings. For that reason I have called you here today. To give you my solution. Not to ask your permission. I am the commander-in-chief and the decision is mine alone to take. I have taken it. The matter is out of your hands. The Greeks believe that only the man who does the deed is guilty of the crime, if the deed be a crime. Therefore the guilt rests entirely upon my shoulders. None of you has a share in it. None of you will suffer because of it. I bear the burden. You have often heard me say that the memory of cruelty is poor comfort for old age, but there are reasons why I do not fear that fate as I did until I spoke with Cathbad of the Druids." He returned to his curule chair, and seated himself in the formal position. "Tomorrow I will see the men who defended Uxellodunum. I believe there are about four thousand of them. Yes, there are more, but four thousand will do. Those who scowl the most, eye us with the most hatred. I will amputate both their hands." He said it calmly; a faint sigh echoed around the room. How good, that neither Decimus Brutus nor Gaius Trebonius was there! But Hirtius was staring at him with eyes full of tears, and Caesar found that difficult. He had to swallow, he hoped not too visibly. Then he went on. "I will not ask any Roman to do the business. Some among the citizens of Uxellodunum can do it. Volunteers. Eighty men, each to sever the hands of fifty men. I will offer to spare the hands of any men who volunteer. It will produce enough. The artificers are working now on a special tool I have devised, a little like a sharp chisel six inches wide across the blade. It will be positioned across the back of the hand just below the wrist bones, and struck once with a hammer. Flow of blood to the member will be occluded by a thong around the forearm. The moment the amputation is done, the wrist will be dipped in pitch. Some may bleed to death. Most won't." He was speaking fluently now, easily, for he was out of the realm of ideas and into the practicalities. "These four thousand handless men will then be banished to wander and beg all over this vast country. And whoever should see a man with no hands will think of the lesson learned after the siege of Uxellodunum. When the legions disperse, as they will very shortly, each legion will take some of the handless men with it to wherever it goes into winter cantonments. Thus making sure that the handless are well scattered. For the lesson is wasted unless the evidence of it is seen everywhere. "I will conclude by giving you some information compiled by my gallant but unsung clerical heroes. The eight years of war in Gallia Comata have cost the Gauls a million dead warriors. A million people have been sold into slavery. Four hundred thousand Gallic women and children are dead, and a quarter of a million Gallic families have been rendered homeless. That is the entire population of Italia. An awful indication of the bull's blindness and anger. It has to stop! It has to stop now. It has to stop here at Uxellodunum. When I give up my command in the Gauls, Gallia Comata will be at peace." He nodded a dismissal; all the men filed out silently, none looking at Caesar. Save for Hirtius, who stayed. "Don't say a word!" Caesar snapped. "I don't intend to," said Hirtius.