The Dictator (41 page)

The impersonation was uncannily good. It was like a message from the Underworld. And then, to groans of horror, the manikin of Caesar’s corpse was raised by some mechanical contraption and rotated full circle so that all the wounds were shown.

From that point onwards Caesar’s funeral followed the pattern of Clodius’s. The body was supposed to be burned on a pyre already prepared on the Field of Mars. But as it was being borne down from the rostra, angry voices cried out that it should instead be cremated in Pompey’s Senate chamber, where the crime was committed, or on the Capitol, where the conspirators had taken refuge. Then the crowd, with some collective impulse, changed its mind and decided that it should be burned on the spot. Antony did nothing to stop any of this but looked on indulgently as once again the bookshops of the Argiletum were ransacked and the benches of the law courts were dragged into the centre of the Forum and stacked in a pile. Caesar’s bier was set upon the bonfire and torched. The actors and dancers and musicians pulled off their robes and masks and threw them into the flames. The crowd followed suit. They tore at their own clothes in their hysteria and these along with everything else flammable went flying on to the fire. When the mob started running through the streets carrying torches, looking for the houses of the assassins, I finally lost my nerve and headed back to the Palatine. On my way I passed poor Helvius Cinna, the poet and tribune, who had been mistaken by the mob for his namesake the praetor Cornelius Cinna, whom Antony had mentioned in his speech. He was being dragged away screaming with a noose around his neck, and afterwards his head was paraded around the Forum on a pole.

When I staggered back into the house and told Cicero what had happened, he put his face in his hands. All that night the sounds of destruction went on and the sky was lit up by the houses that had been set on fire. The following day Antony sent a message to Decimus warning that the lives of the assassins could no longer be protected and urging them to withdraw from Rome. Cicero advised them to do as Antony suggested: they would be more useful to the cause alive than dead. Decimus went to Nearer Gaul to try to take control of his allotted province. Trebonius travelled by a circuitous route to Asia to do the same. Brutus and Cassius retreated to the coast at Antium. Cicero headed south.

He was finished with politics, he said. He was finished with Italy. He would go to Greece. He would stay with his son in Athens. He would write philosophy.

We packed up most of the books he needed from his libraries in Rome and Tusculum and set off with a large entourage, including two secretaries, a chef, a doctor and six bodyguards. The weather had been unseasonably cold and wet ever since the assassination, which of course was taken as yet another sign of the gods’ displeasure at Caesar’s murder. My strongest memory of those days spent travelling is of Cicero in his carriage composing philosophy with a blanket over his knees while the rain drummed continuously on the thin wooden roof. We stayed one night with Matius Calvena, the equestrian, who was in despair over the future of the nation: “If a man of Caesar’s genius could find no way out, who will find one now?” But apart from him, in contrast to the scenes in Rome, we found no one who was not glad to see the back of the Dictator. “Unfortunately,” as Cicero observed, “none of them has control of a legion.”

He sought refuge in his work, and by the time we reached Puteoli on the Ides of April, he had completed one entire book—
On Auguries
—half of another—
On Fate
—and had begun a third—
On Glory
—three examples of his genius that will live for as long as men are still capable of reading. And no sooner had he got out of his carriage and stretched his legs along the seashore than he began sketching the outline of a fourth,
On Friendship
(
With the single exception of wisdom, I am inclined to regard it as the greatest of all the gifts the gods have bestowed upon mankind
), which he planned to dedicate to Atticus. The physical world might have become a hostile and dangerous place for him, but in his mind he lived in freedom and tranquillity.

Antony had dismissed the Senate until the first day of June, and gradually the great villas around the Bay of Naples began to fill with the leading men of Rome. Most of the new arrivals, like Hirtius and Pansa, were still in a state of shock at Caesar’s death. The pair were supposed to take over as consuls at the end of the year, and as part of their preparation they asked Cicero if he would give them further lessons in oratory. He didn’t much want to—it was a distraction from his writing, and he found their doleful talk about Caesar irritating—but in the end he was too easy-going to refuse. He took them on to the beach to learn elocution as Demosthenes had done, by speaking clearly through a mouth full of pebbles, and to learn voice projection by delivering their speeches into the crashing waves. Over the dinner table they were full of stories of Antony’s high-handedness: of how he had tricked Calpurnia on the night of the assassination into giving him custody of her late husband’s private papers as well as his fortune; of how he now pretended these documents contained various edicts that had the force of law, whereas in fact he had forged them in return for enormous bribes.

Cicero said, “So he has his hands on all the money? But I thought three quarters of Caesar’s fortune was supposed to go to this boy Octavian?”

Hirtius rolled his eyes. “He’ll be lucky!”

Pansa added, “He’ll have to come and get it first, and I wouldn’t give much for his chances.”

Two days after this exchange, I was sheltering from the rain in the portico, reading the elder Cato’s treatise on agriculture, when the steward came up to me to announce that L. Cornelius Balbus had arrived to see Cicero.

“Then tell the master he’s here.”

“But I’m not sure that I should—he gave me strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed, no matter who came to call.”

I sighed and laid aside my book: Balbus was one man who would have to be seen. He was the Spaniard who had handled Caesar’s business affairs in Rome. He was well known to Cicero, who had once defended him in the courts against an attempt to strip him of his citizenship. He was now in his middle fifties and owned a huge villa nearby. I found him waiting in the tablinum with a toga-clad youth I took at first to be his son or grandson, except when I looked more closely I saw that he couldn’t be, for Balbus was swarthy whereas this boy had damp blond hair badly cut in a basin style; he was also rather short and slender, pretty-faced but with a pasty complexion pitted by acne.

“Ah, Tiro,” cried Balbus, “will you kindly drag Cicero away from his books? Just tell him I have brought Caesar’s adopted son to see him—Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus—that ought to do it.”

And the young man smiled shyly at me, showing gapped uneven teeth.

Naturally Cicero came at once, overwhelmed by curiosity to meet this exotic creature, seemingly dropped into the tumult of Roman politics from the sky. Balbus introduced the young man, who bowed and said, “It is one of the greatest honours of my life to meet you. I have read all your speeches and works of philosophy. I have dreamed of this moment for years.” His voice was pleasant: soft and well educated.

Cicero fairly preened at the compliment. “You are very kind to say it. Now please tell me, before we go further: what am I to call you?”

“In public I insist on Caesar. To my friends and family I am Octavian.”

“Well, since at my age I would find another Caesar hard to get used to, perhaps it could be Octavian for me as well, if I may?”

The young man bowed again. “I would be honoured.”

And so began two days of unexpectedly friendly exchanges. It turned out that Octavian was staying next door with his mother Atia and his stepfather Philippus, and he wandered back and forth quite freely between the two houses. Often he appeared on his own, even though he had brought an entourage of friends and soldiers over with him from Illyricum, and more had joined him at Naples. He and Cicero would talk in the villa or walk along the seashore together in the intervals between showers. Watching them, I was reminded of a line in Cicero’s treatise on old age:
just as I approve of the young man in whom there is a touch of age, so I approve of the old man in whom there is some flavour of youth…
Oddly enough, it was Octavian who sometimes seemed the older of the two: serious, polite, deferential, shrewd; it was Cicero who made the jokes and skimmed the stones across the sea. He told me that Octavian had no small talk. All he wanted was political advice. The fact that Cicero was publicly aligned with his adopted father’s killers appeared to be neither here nor there as far as he was concerned. How soon should he go to Rome? How should he handle Antony? What should he say to Caesar’s veterans, many of whom were hanging around the house? How was civil war to be avoided?

Cicero was impressed: “I can understand entirely what Caesar saw in him—he has a certain coolness rare in one of his years. He might make a great statesman one day, if only he can survive long enough.” The men around him were a different matter. These included a couple of Caesar’s old army commanders, with the hard, dead eyes of professional killers; and some arrogant young companions, two in particular: Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, not yet twenty but already bloodied by war, taciturn and faintly menacing even in repose; and Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, a little older, effeminate, giggling, cynical.
“Those,”
said Cicero, “I do not care for
at all.
”

On only one occasion did I have an opportunity to observe Octavian closely for any length of time. That was on the final day of his stay, when he came to dinner with his mother and stepfather, along with Agrippa and Maecenas; Cicero also invited Hirtius and Pansa; I made up the nine. I noticed how the young man never touched his wine, how quiet he was, how his pale grey eyes flicked from one speaker to another and how intently he listened, as if he was trying to commit everything they said to memory. Atia, who looked as if she might have been the model for a statue commemorating the ideal Roman matron, was far too proper to voice a political opinion in public. Philippus, however, who certainly did drink, became increasingly voluble, and towards the end of the evening announced, “Well, if anyone wants to know
my
opinion, I think Octavian should renounce this inheritance.”

Maecenas whispered to me, “
Does
anyone want to know his opinion?” and he bit on his napkin to stifle his laughter.

Octavian said mildly, “And what leads you to that opinion, Father?”

“Well, if I may speak frankly, my boy, you can
call
yourself Caesar all you like but that doesn’t
make
you Caesar, and the closer you get to Rome the greater the danger will be. Do you really think Antony is just going to hand over all these millions? And why would Caesar’s veterans follow you rather than Antony, who commanded a wing at Pharsalus? Caesar’s name is just a target on your back. You’ll be killed before you’ve gone fifty miles.”

Hirtius and Pansa nodded in agreement.

Agrippa said quietly, “No, we can get him to Rome safely enough.”

Octavian turned to Cicero. “And what do you think?”

Cicero dabbed carefully at his mouth with his napkin before replying. “Just four months ago your adopted father was dining precisely where you are now and assuring me he had no fear of death. The truth is, all our lives hang by a thread. There is no safety anywhere, and no one can predict what will happen. When I was your age, I dreamed only of glory. What I wouldn’t have given to be in your place now!”

“So you would go to Rome?”

“I would.”

“And do what?”

“Stand for election.”

Philippus said, “But he’s only eighteen. He’s not even old enough to vote.”

Cicero continued: “As it happens, there’s a vacancy for a tribune: Cinna was killed by the mob at Caesar’s funeral—they got the wrong man, poor devil. You should propose yourself to fill his place.”

Octavian said, “But surely Antony would never allow it?”

Cicero replied, “That doesn’t matter. Such a move would show your determination to continue Caesar’s policy of championing the people: the plebs will love it. And when Antony opposes you—as he must—he’ll be seen as opposing them.”

Octavian nodded slowly. “That’s not a bad idea. Perhaps you should come with me?”

Cicero laughed. “No, I’m retiring to Greece to study philosophy.”

“That’s a pity.”

After the dinner, when the guests were preparing to leave, I overheard Octavian say to Cicero, “I meant what I said. I would value your wisdom.”

Cicero shook his head. “I fear my loyalties lie in the other direction, with those who struck down your adopted father. But if ever there was a possibility of your reconciling with them—well then, in such circumstances, in the interests of the state, I would do all I could to help you.”

“I’m not opposed to reconciliation. It’s my legacy I want, not vengeance.”

“Can I tell them that?”

“Of course. That’s why I said it. Goodbye. I shall write to you.”