The Horse Changer (9 page)

Antony then sent an invitation to the leadership of the assassins to meet with him that evening. Some hours later, word came back that Junius Brutus and Cassius Longinus would come for a meeting on condition that both sides exchange family members to serve as hostages. This was arranged and that evening Cassius and Brutus settled down to a meal at Dolabella’s mansion. Neither Brutus nor Cassius dared taste the food or drink the wine. No matter. Antony feasted as per his custom, and Dolabella tipped his cup as carelessly as an honest man.

The first order of business, according to Antony, was to establish a truce among all parties. No need for more bloodshed. Brutus protested at once; the first order of business, he said, was the restoration of the Republic. There would be no more tyrants or dictators or talk of kings in Rome.

Clearly he thought Antony aspired to replace Caesar. Antony answered him enthusiastically, ‘You are right of course. Unless by restoration you mean my consulship is illegitimate.’

‘That is exactly the case,’ Cassius answered.

‘Then I suppose I haven’t the authority to call the senate to session for the purpose of voting immunity to those involved in Caesar’s death?’

After a long, thoughtful pause Brutus asked, ‘You would do that?’

‘If I were still a consul I would. Of course, if you want to declare me illegitimate and arrange elections at once, I cannot help you. You want a Republic and that, I’m afraid, comes with courts and the right of Caesar’s family to bring the charge of murder against all of you.’

‘Caesar was a tyrant!’ Cassius answered.

‘Perhaps he was, but he was also a citizen. Under the laws of our Republic his family can make you answer for his death in court. You know how it goes: lost fortunes, exile…’ He gave a shiver. ‘Juries can get very testy about the murder of a man they once loved. But as you like. I’ll not worry about it. It’s your court date, not mine.’

The agreement that followed was the sort of sham only Mark Antony could have conjured, as worthless as a roll of wet papyrus in the long run but sufficient to keep the peace for the next few days.

Antony, in his role as consul, called the senate to session next morning before dawn and got a unanimous vote on a single measure, the details of which had been negotiated the night before. Antony’s and Dolabella’s consulships were confirmed. Lepidus received his pontificate. Caesar would have a funeral at public expense, and the assassins were all immune from civil and criminal prosecution. Should anyone care to protest the senate’s decision Lepidus stood ready to advance his legions into the city.

The city was still quiet when I arrived on the Camp of Mars. I left Hannibal and my pack mule at a stable and walked into the city with a hired slave pushing a rickety cart filled with my gear. This was the evening before Caesar’s funeral. Rather than seek out a public house or my family’s Tuscan friends, I went directly to the great house of the Cornelii, for I had promised Dolabella I would report to him before the third day after the Ides of March.

As soon as I had identified myself, Dolabella’s steward informed me that I would walk with Dolabella’s party next morning. This actually meant I would serve as part of Dolabella’s security force, though we didn’t use terms of that kind. A client walked with his patron as a show of respect. He might carry a gladius and dagger concealed beneath his toga and even a stout walking staff with a steel point on it, but it was not appropriate to appear in the city in military armour. Good friends in great numbers? Well, who is not envied his popularity?

I joined some fifty friends in a makeshift barracks inside Dolabella’s house. Not all the fellows were busy when I entered, but a great number of them were honing the blades of their weapons.

As a consul, now officially appointed by the senate to his office, Dolabella had an escort of lictors to accompany him in public; these men surrounded a standing consul as a mark of honour. They were sworn to protect the consul with their lives, but their numbers might not be sufficient against determined assassins. With another fifty friends close by, Dolabella would be far safer. My patron’s anxiety for his personal safety seemed out of all proportion to any danger I could imagine until I saw the mass of people gathered in the Forum next morning.

In the wake of Caesar’s assassination, the mob had stayed quiet, but that is not to say they were content. On the morning of Caesar’s funeral they filled the Forum, spreading across the steps of all the temples and crowding along the basilicas Julia and Aemilia to the north and south of the great plaza. Even the rooftops and alleyways surrounding the Forum were filled. Man or woman, it made no difference: wherever I looked, I saw a murderous scowl.

Caesar’s corpse had been set atop the speaker’s platform with only a solitary squad of lictors posted around his funeral litter. Directly behind him was the dreary old Temple of Saturn, black with the smoke of centuries. Behind it was the Capitoline, with Jupiter’s gleaming white temple pre-eminent at the top of the hill.

Caesar was propped up on one elbow in the traditional manner of the dead; the effect suggests a fellow reclining on his couch at a feast. He was wearing a senator’s toga with the broad purple stripe and holding a drinking cup. This is the Roman way of bidding our world farewell and certainly not the worst of our customs. Brave and careless, yet honouring the amenities of life, we leave the light of day.

Caesar’s co-consul, Mark Antony, delivered the funeral oration. He began his address with the usual tropes. He spoke of Caesar’s kindnesses to his friends and family. Eventually he turned to the matter of Caesar’s long and honoured service to Rome. I did not listen closely, for although Antony was a skilled speaker I soon found myself thinking about Caesar at my bedside: the touch of his hand on mine, his assurance that I was much needed.

A rumble in the crowd brought me out of my reflections. Once more I awakened to the terror of the mob. I could see nothing at first. Antony was quoting the oath that men had taken to serve Caesar: ‘…a sacred oath given freely before gods and men!’ Then he named the men who had taken that oath: Gaius Trebonius, Cassius Longinus, Junius Brutus...

He continued naming the assassins, and as he did he walked over to Caesar’s corpse. He pulled the toga away, exposing the stab wounds, more than twenty in all. ‘Look and see how these men kept their sacred promises.’ And touching the wounds, he cried again, ‘Look and weep, Romans!’

It was a call to battle, and the plebs answered with a roar.

Our captain called to us to get around Dolabella and take him up to the Capitoline, which was the closest fortification. He might as well have asked us to fly. We could not move. I could hear the plebs tearing into shops and looting goods. The Curia was soon put to fire. The old senate house was not the site of Caesar’s murder, but that fact bothered no one. The senate house was handy and had long symbolised everything the plebs hated about their overlords. Once it was ablaze, the pressure of the mob shifted.

With swords drawn we were able to evacuate along the Via Sacra up the Capitoline’s slopes and safely beyond the crush of the mob. As the road lifted us above the Forum I caught a glimpse of the melee from high ground. I could see both basilicas along the Forum’s perimeter had already been trashed and set on fire; here and there the bodies of senators and equites were already down. Those men who had been hemmed in by the crowd or were too witless to escape when they had the chance were presently pursued by gangs of plebs. It did not matter if a man belonged to the assassin’s league or Caesar’s; a purple stripe that morning was enough to mark a man as an enemy of Rome.

Looking down at the Forum from the porch of the Temple of Jupiter we watched the mob destroy everything within reach. Despite the chaos, neither Antony nor Dolabella appeared anxious to summon Lepidus. To be honest, I think the consuls rather enjoyed the fulsome slaughter.

When they had seen enough and finally sent for him, Lepidus stormed into the city with every man he had. By late afternoon, the fight was over. Next morning hundreds of corpses of men, women, and children littered the Forum and streets beyond; pleb thugs had fallen over murdered aristocracy. The corpses of children were stiff in the arms of their rigid mothers. The shops were charred from fire. And ten thousand legionaries stood at attention throughout the city, even as squads of cavalry patrolled the streets.

It was at this point that a great many of the senators decided it might be a good idea to spend a few weeks at their country villas. Those actually guilty of murdering Caesar applied to the consuls for permission to leave Italy altogether.

For the moment Mark Antony’s coalition ruled Rome, which is to say Antony ruled the world. Caesar’s enemies were on the run, and the plebs were certain Antony embraced their cause. Nor did he play the tyrant. He took all and sundry matters before either the senate or the people’s assembly. Nothing became law without a vote.

Nor was there any more murder of the aristocracy. Both Antony and Dolabella were happy to write passports for any of the assassins who asked the favour of them. At that late date, there were no senior positions to be had, but a minor office in some foreign city gave them the legal excuse to leave Italy.

As for the legions available to Antony and Dolabella, the two consuls made no personal use of them. Lepidus marched off to Gaul in a matter of days after Caesar’s funeral. The great army in western Macedonia remained in camp for the duration of the summer.

For the better part of my life I have wondered how fortune turned so quickly against Antony. Within a matter of weeks everything he had accomplished began to unravel. Did he not understand the dangers he faced? Was he overconfident of his popularity with the mob? Too certain of the loyalty of the legions?

Only in my old age has it come to me. Antony acted quite properly. He was not interested in becoming another Caesar. He only wanted to serve his term as consul and then retire to a prosperous provincial government, where he might amass a fortune that even he could not exhaust. It can never be said that Antony was politically inept or stupid. Quite the opposite: he proved himself a political genius in the aftermath of Caesar’s murder.

That he lost his power so quickly makes it seem as if he misjudged matters terribly or somehow let his success blind him to danger. There is some truth in both views, but a better assessment of the situation is that Julius Caesar came back from the dead. After that, no mortal could anticipate what might happen next.

Some days after the riots in Rome we awakened to find the city under a heavy fog. This was not the usual kind of moist air that forms around a river on a cold morning. Ashes drifted in the air and a vile sulphurous stench permeated everything. We thought it would pass with the first wind, but it stayed in Rome through the whole summer. It limited vision and burned the eyes. It wore on men’s nerves as it lingered and made everyone wonder if it would ever depart.

The plebs were quick to assume the gods had sent this fog as a punishment on Rome. This was of course pure nonsense. With the coming of Octavian, Rome was going to have all the punishment she could endure. The more thoughtful of the superstitious eventually decided that the fog served as a harbinger of his coming. Another view, and certainly a less romantic one, is that Mount Etna blew its top.