The Woman of Andros and The Ides of March (37 page)

I enclose a copy of one of these public notices. They are circulating throughout Italy by the thousands.

Scarcely a day has passed during the last year when I have not received new detailed evidence of one or other of these conspiratorial movements. I am brought lists of names and accounts of their reunions. I intercept letters. The majority of such groups are unbelievably maladept. Their membership generally includes one who is eager to sell his information for money or favour.

Each new conspiracy awakens in me a great interest – I was going to say ‘a happy interest,’ soon disappointed.

In the first place, I have little doubt that, soon or late, I shall die by the hand of a tyrannicide. I have not chosen to encumber my life with the constant protection of armed guards nor my mind with the practice of vigilant anxiety. I could wish that it were the dagger of a patriot that strikes me down, but I am equally exposed to those of the madman and the envious. In the meantime, by incarceration, exile, admonition, and exposure, I have arrested such plots as have come to my notice.

As I say, I have followed them with interest. It is always possible that among those who plan my death I shall find the man who is right in the matters where I am wrong. There are many better men in the world than I am, but I have not yet seen the man who could be a better ruler of our State. If he exists I think he would now be planning my death. Rome as I have shaped it, as I have had to shape it, is not a comfortable place for a man whose genius is the genius for ruling at the top: if I were not Caesar now, I would be Caesar’s assassin. (That thought had not occurred to me until this moment, but I see it is true; it is one of the many discoveries that come to me from the practice of writing letters to you.)

But there is an even profounder reason why I should wish to know something about the man who slays me, even though that knowledge is mine only during the last moment of my life. This brings me back to that inquiry which, as you know, occupies me increasingly: Is there a Mind in or above the universe which is watching us?

I am often called ‘Destiny’s favourite.’ If the Gods exist they placed me where I am. They placed every man where he is, but the man who fills my seat is among the more conspicuous of Their appointments – as, in his way, the poet Catullus is; as you are; as Pompey was. The man who slays me would perhaps afford us some light upon Their nature – Their selected instrument. But even as I write this my pen falls from my hand. I shall probably die by the dagger of a madman. The Gods hide themselves even in their choice of instrument. We are all at the mercy of a falling tile. We are left with the picture of Jupiter going about dislodging tiles which fall upon a lemonade vendor or upon Caesar. The jury that condemned Socrates to death were not august instruments; nor were the eagle and the tortoise that slew Aeschylus. It is probable that my last moment of consciousness will be filled with the last of many confirmations that the affairs of the world proceed with that senselessness with which a stream carries leaves upon its tide.

There is another element in the eagerness with which I inquire into each new conspiracy. Would it not be a wonderful discovery to find that I am hated to the death by a man whose hatred is disinterested? It is rare enough to find a disinterested love; so far among those that hate me I have uncovered nothing beyond the promptings of envy, of self-advancing ambition, or of self-consoling destructiveness. It may be that in that last moment I may be permitted to look into the face of a man whose only thought is Rome and whose only thought is that I am the enemy of Rome.

980 – 982. [
Already given in Document VIII.
]

983. [
On the weather.
]

984.
[
On the increasing divergence between written and spoken Latin and the decay of case endings and the subjunctive in popular speech.
]

985.
[
Again, on primogeniture and the inheritance of property.
]

986. [
Accompanying the second broadside.
]

I enclose the second public notice of the Committee of Twenty. I have not yet learned who are the initiators of this series. It smacks of some new kind of malcontent.

Since childhood I have been attentive to the attitude which men bear to those who have been placed over them and who are in a position to restrict their movements. What deference and loyalty masking what contempt and hatred! The deference and loyalty proceeds from a man’s gratitude that his superior relieves him of responsibility and from the terrors of weighty decision; the contempt and hatred from his resentment against the man who limits his freedom. During a part of every day and night even the mildest man is, however obscurely, the murderer of those who can command his obedience. In my youth I was often filled with consternation to discover that, waking or sleeping, I was prone to dream the death of my father, my tutors, and my governors toward whom I often bore a real, if intermittent, love. It was, therefore, with a kind of pleasure that I used to listen to the songs which my soldiers sang about their campfires; for every four songs that elevated me to the Gods there was a fifth that diminished me to idiocy, senile vice, and decay. These last they sang loudest and the woods rang with glee at my death. I found in myself no anger, but only a little laughter and a few accelerated steps toward old age when I discovered that even Marc Antony and Dolabella had for a time joined with a group which was plotting my death; for a time the master they loved had merged with all the masters they had hated. It is only dogs that never bite their masters.

This combination of impulses is a part of the movement of the world and is not for us to approve or disapprove, for like all the fundamental impulses it produces both good and ill. And from it I draw confirmation of my conviction that the central movement of the mind is the desire for unrestricted liberty and that this movement is invariably accompanied by its opposite, a dread of the consequences of liberty.

Notes by Catullus, found by Caesar’s Secret Police.

[
These reached the Dictator on September 27.
] [
These rough drafts were on the reverse of leaves containing fragments of poetry or on slates. In both cases they had been negligently erased
.]

. . . . A Committee of Ten has been formed. . . .

. . . . This Committee of Twenty, having taken oaths before the altars of the Gods . . .

. . . . beginning on the twelfth of next month, September . . .

. . . on the uneven days of the month will refrain from all . . .

. . . . assiduous attendance at the public appearance of the Dictator . . . acclamations of profuse flattery . . .

Caesar to Catullus.

[
September 27
.]

It has been brought to my attention that certain friends of yours have initiated a series of documents designed to overturn the government of this Republic.

I regard these measures as childish and mistaken rather than criminal. Your friends will have observed the means I have already taken to render them harmless and ridiculous. Pressure is being brought upon me, however, to inflict public punishment on their perpetrators.

I find it difficult to believe that you had any hand in so inept an excursion into public affairs; but there is evidence to show that you were at least aware of it.

For the sake of my long friendship with your father I am willing to deal leniently with these mistaken young men. I place their fortunes in your hands. If you are able to inform me that their part in the circulation of these letters will cease, I shall regard the matter as closed.

I do not wish to hear any defense of their action. An affirmative word from you will be sufficient. That word you can give me day after tomorrow when I shall meet you, I am told, at the dinner being given by C. Publius Clodius and the Lady Clodia Pulcher.

Catullus to Caesar.

[
September 28
.]

The letters of which you speak were planned by me alone and the first copies of them were sent out by me alone. There is no Committee of Twenty.

The means I have employed to remind Romans of their shrinking liberties may well seem inept to a Dictator. His powers are unlimited, as is his jealousy of any liberty other than his own. His powers extend to ransacking the private papers of the citizens.

The composition of these letters by me has already ceased, since their efficacy is at an end.

Third Broadside of Conspiracy, written by Julius Caesar.

[
By
‘their efficacy is at an end’
Catullus meant that the country was now so flooded by letters written in imitation of his own that the movement was soon dissipated in the bewilderment and flagging interest of the citizens. This Third Broadside which appeared a few days after the Second received the widest circulation of all of them
.]

The Council of Twenty to every Roman worthy of his ancestors, this third bulletin.

The Council of Twenty now feels that these letters have received a sufficiently wide circulation. Hundreds of thousands have been aroused to a patriotic hatred of the oppressor and to an eager expectation of his death.

In the meantime you are instructed to prepare the people for this happy event. Hence, lose no opportunity to ridicule the so-called achievements of the tyrant.

Belittle his conquests. Remember that the territory was conquered by the Generals working under him to whom he denied all merit. He is called Unconquered, but it is well known that he suffered many costly defeats which were concealed from the Roman people. Spread about many stories of his personal cowardice before the enemy.

Remember the Civil Wars; remember Pompey. Remind the people of the brilliance of his circuses.

The distribution of lands: enlarge upon the injustice done to the large landholders. Intimate that the veterans received only stony or marshy land.

The Council of Twenty has drawn up detailed plans for the control of public order and finance. The senile edicts of the Dictator will be revoked at once: the sumptuary laws, the reform in the calendar, the new currency, the ten-head system of distributing grain, the senseless expenditure of public funds on irrigation and the control of waterways. Prosperity and plenty will reign.

Death to Caesar. For our country and our Gods. Silence and resolution.

The Council of Twenty

Caius Cassius at Palestrina to his mother-in-law, Servilia, in Rome.

[
November 3
.]

[
Reading between the lines, the following letter discusses opportunities for assassinating Caesar and means of inducing Brutus to join the conspiracy
.]

The company which is seeking to do honour to our friend is increasing daily. There are many whose names we do not know. Our efforts to learn those of the admirers last month [
Query: Those who attacked Caesar on September 27?
] have been unavailing.

It is difficult to find an occasion when an honour of this sort may be conferred, for it must both come as a surprise to the recipient and at the same time make as strong and agreeable an impression as possible upon the bystanders. Plans were well advanced to effect this at the conclusion of the Queen of Egypt’s reception. Our guest of honour mysteriously disappeared from the assembly, however, and it was thought that he had received some intimation of the ovation that was to be accorded him.

I am increasingly of the opinion that this gratifying event should be delayed until at least one more of our friend’s closest associates be included among those conferring this honour. We are deeply indebted to you for your efforts toward this end. The person I have in mind has avoided my company and has even sent excuses that he is unable to see me in his home.

We understand all the weight, honoured Madam, of your arguments urging haste. We also are alarmed at the possibility that others may forestall us in this laudable enterprise, and with results that could only be disastrous. I hope to call upon you when next I come to the City.

Long life and health to the Dictator.

Porcia, wife of M. Junius Brutus, to her aunt and mother-in-law, Servilia.

[
November 26
.]

It is with respect but firmness, Madam, that I must ask you to cease to pay visits to this house. My husband has not concealed from me the reluctance he has to receive you and the relief that he feels at your departure. You will not have failed to remark that he never calls upon you in your home; you may infer from that that he receives you here only from a sense of filial duty. His agitated behavior and his troubled sleep following your visits have led me to take this action. I might well have taken it earlier, for I feel it unsuitable that I, as his wife, should be sent out of the room at each of your interviews.

You have known me for many years. You know that I am not a contentious woman and that I have previously acknowledged many an indebtedness to you. That my sisters have also been obliged to take this same action does not render it easier for me [
i.e.
her sisters-in-law; apparently the wives of Cassius and Lentulus had also closed their doors to their mother
].

My husband does not know that I am writing this letter to you. I am not averse to his knowing it, if you wish to tell him so.

I thank you for your letter of sympathy on my great loss [
her miscarriage
]. I would have been more sensible of your expressions of affection and esteem, had you elsewhere shown me that I was sufficiently a member of this household to be included in your agitating interviews with my husband.

Inscription.

[
The following words were inscribed on a tablet of gold which, among other similar memorial tablets, were set into the wall behind the household altars of the Porcian and Junian families where they remained until the destruction of Rome
.]

Porcia, daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato of Utica, being married to Marcus Junius Brutus the tyrannicide, was aware that her husband was concealing from her the plans that he was then revolving for the liberation of the Roman people. On a night she plunged a dagger deep into her thigh. For many hours she gave no groan nor any sign of the great pain that consumed her. In the morning she showed her husband this wound, saying: If I have kept silent about this thing, can I not be trusted to keep the counsels of my lord? Thereupon her husband embraced her weeping and communicated all the thoughts that he had kept hidden in his soul.