Caesar came back to Rome to resume the suspended work of practical
reform. His first care was to remove the fears which the final spasm of
rebellion had again provoked. He had already granted an amnesty. But
the optimates were conscious that they had desired and hoped that the
Pompeys might be victorious in Spain. Caesar invited the surviving
leaders of the party to sue for pardon on not unbecoming conditions.
Hitherto they had kept no faith with him, and on the first show of
opportunity had relapsed into defiance. His forbearance had been
attributed to want of power rather than of will to punish; when they
saw him again triumphant, they assumed that the representative of the
Marian principles would show at last the colors of his uncle, and that
Rome would again run with blood. He knew them all. He knew that they
hated him, and would continue to hate him; but he supposed that they
had recognized the hopelessness and uselessness of further conspiracy.
By destroying him they would fall only under the rod of less scrupulous
conquerors; and therefore he was content that they should ask to be
forgiven. To show further that the past was really to be forgotten, he
drew no distinction between his enemies and his friends, and he
recommended impartially for office those whose rank or services to the
State entitled them to look for promotion. Thus he pardoned and
advanced Caius Cassius, who would have killed him in Cilicia.[1] But
Cassius had saved Syria from being overrun by the Parthians after the
death of Crassus; and the service to the State outweighed the injury to
himself. So he pardoned and advanced Marcus Brutus, his friend
Servilia's son, who had fought against him at Pharsalia, and had been
saved from death there by his special orders. So he pardoned and
protected Cicero; so Marcus Marcellus, who, as consul, had moved that
he should be recalled from his government, and had flogged the citizen
of Como, in scorn of the privileges which Caesar had granted to the
colony. So he pardoned also Quintus Ligarius,[2] who had betrayed his
confidence in Africa; so a hundred others, who now submitted, accepted
his favors, and bound themselves to plot against him no more. To the
widows and children of those who had fallen in the war he restored the
estates and honors of their families. Finally, as some were still
sullen, and refused to sue for a forgiveness which might imply an
acknowledgment of guilt, he renewed the general amnesty of the previous
year; and, as a last evidence that his victory was not the triumph of
democracy, but the consolidation of a united Empire, he restored the
statues of Sylla and Pompey, which had been thrown down in the
revolution, and again dedicated them with a public ceremonial.
Having thus proved that, so far as he was concerned, he nourished no
resentment against the persons of the optimates, or against their
principles, so far as they were consistent with the future welfare of
the Roman State, Caesar set himself again to the reorganization of the
administration. Unfortunately, each step that he took was a fresh crime
in the eyes of men whose pleasant monopoly of power he had overthrown.
But this was a necessity of the revolution. They had fought for their
supremacy, and had lost the day.
He increased the number of the Senate to nine hundred, filling its
ranks from eminent provincials; introducing even barbarian Gauls, and,
still worse, libertini, the sons of liberated slaves, who had risen to
distinction by their own merit. The new members came in slowly, and it
is needless to say were unwillingly received; a private handbill was
sent round, recommending the coldest of greetings to them.[3]
The inferior magistrates were now responsible to himself as Dictator.
He added to their numbers also, and to check the mischiefs of the
annual elections, he ordered that they should be chosen for three
years. He cut short the corn grants, which nursed the city mob in
idleness; and from among the impoverished citizens he furnished out
masses of colonists to repair the decay of ancient cities. Corinth rose
from its ashes under Caesar's care. Eighty thousand Italians were
settled down on the site of Carthage. As inspector of morals, Caesar
inherited in an invigorated form the power of the censors. Senators and
officials who had discredited themselves by dishonesty were ruthlessly
degraded. His own private habits and the habits of his household were
models of frugality. He made an effort, in which Augustus afterward
imitated him, to check the luxury which was eating into the Roman
character. He forbade the idle young patricians to be carried about by
slaves in litters. The markets of the world had been ransacked to
provide dainties for these gentlemen. He appointed inspectors to survey
the dealers' stalls, and occasionally prohibited dishes were carried
off from the dinner table under the eyes of the disappointed guests,[4]
Enemies enough Caesar made by these measures; but it could not be said
of him that he allowed indulgences to himself which he interdicted to
others. His domestic economy was strict and simple, the accounts being
kept to a sesterce. His frugality was hospitable. He had two tables
always, one for his civilian friends, another for his officers, who
dined in uniform. The food was plain, but the best of its kind; and he
was not to be played with in such matters. An unlucky baker who
supplied his guests with bread of worse quality than he furnished for
himself was put in chains. Against moral offences he was still more
severe. He, the supposed example of licentiousness with women, executed
his favorite freedman for adultery with a Roman lady. A senator had
married a woman two days after her divorce from her first husband;
Caesar pronounced the marriage void.
[Sidenote: B.C. 45-44.] Law reforms went on. Caesar appointed a
commission to examine the huge mass of precedents, reduce them to
principles, and form a Digest. He called in Marcus Varro's help to form
libraries in the great towns. He encouraged physicians and men of
science to settle in Rome, by offering them the freedom of the city. To
maintain the free population of Italy, he required the planters and
farmers to employ a fixed proportion of free laborers on their estates.
He put an end to the pleasant tours of senators at the expense of the
provinces; their proper place was Italy, and he allowed them to go
abroad only when they were in office or in the service of the
governors. He formed large engineering plans, a plan to drain the
Pontine marshes and the Fucine lake, a plan to form a new channel for
the Tiber, another to improve the roads, another to cut the Isthmus of
Corinth. These were his employments during the few months of life which
were left to him after the close of the war. His health was growing
visibly weaker, but his superhuman energy remained unimpaired. He was
even meditating and was making preparation for a last campaign. The
authority of Rome on the eastern frontier had not recovered from the
effects of the destruction of the army of Crassus. The Parthians were
insolent and aggressive. Caesar had determined to go in person to bring
them to their senses as soon as he could leave Rome. Partly, it was
said that he felt his life would be safer with the troops; partly, he
desired to leave the administration free from his overpowering
presence, that it might learn to go alone; partly and chiefly, he
wished to spend such time as might remain to him where he could do most
service to his country. But he was growing weary of the thankless
burden. He was heard often to say that he had lived long enough. Men of
high nature do not find the task of governing their fellow-creatures
particularly delightful.
The Senate meanwhile was occupied in showing the sincerity of their
conversion by inventing honors for their new master, and smothering him
with distinctions since they had failed to defeat him in the field. Few
recruits had yet joined them, and they were still substantially the old
body. They voted Caesar the name of Liberator. They struck medals for
him, in which he was described as Pater Patriae, an epithet which
Cicero had once with quickened pulse heard given to himself by Pompey.
"Imperator" had been a title conferred hitherto by soldiers in the
field on a successful general. It was now granted to Caesar in a
special sense, and was made hereditary in his family, with the
command-in-chief of the army for his life. The Senate gave him also the
charge of the treasury. They made him consul for ten years. Statues
were to be erected to him in the temples, on the Rostra, and in the
Capitol, where he was to stand as an eighth among the seven Kings of
Rome. In the excess of their adoration, they desired even to place his
image in the Temple of Quirinus himself, with an inscription to him as
[Greek: Theos animaetos], the invincible god. Golden chairs, gilt
chariots, triumphal robes were piled one upon another with laurelled
fasces and laurelled wreaths. His birthday was made a perpetual
holiday, and the month Quinctilis[5] was renamed, in honor of him,
July. A temple to Concord was to be erected in commemoration of his
clemency. His person was declared sacred, and to injure him by word or
deed was to be counted sacrilege. The Fortune of Caesar was introduced
into the constitutional oath, and the Senate took a solemn pledge to
maintain his acts inviolate. Finally, they arrived at a conclusion that
he was not a man at all; no longer Caius Julius, but Divus Julius, a
god or the son of god. A temple was to be built to Caesar as another
Quirinus, and Antony was to be his priest.
Caesar knew the meaning of all this. He must accept their flattery and
become ridiculous, or he must appear to treat with contumely the Senate
which offered it. The sinister purpose started occasionally into sight.
One obsequious senator proposed that every woman in Rome should be at
his disposition, and filthy libels against him were set floating under
the surface. The object, he perfectly understood, "was to draw him into
a position more and more invidious, that he might the sooner perish."
[6] The praise and the slander of such men were alike indifferent to
him. So far as he was concerned, they might call him what they pleased;
god in public, and devil in their epigrams, if it so seemed good to
them. It was difficult for him to know precisely how to act, but he
declined his divine honors; and he declined the ten years' consulship.
Though he was sole consul for the year, he took a colleague, and when
his colleague died on the last day of office, he named another, that
the customary forms might be observed. Let him do what he would, malice
still misconstrued him. Cicero, the most prominent now of his
senatorial flatterers, was the sharpest with his satire behind the
scenes. "Caesar," he said, "had given so active a consul that there was
no sleeping under him." [7]
Caesar was more and more weary of it. He knew that the Senate hated
him; he knew that they would kill him, if they could. All these men
whose lips were running over with adulation, were longing to drive
their daggers into him. He was willing to live, if they would let him
live; but, for himself, he had ceased to care about it. He disdained to
take precautions against assassination. On his first return from Spain,
he had been attended by a guard; but he dismissed it in spite of the
remonstrances of his friends, and went daily into the senate-house
alone and unarmed. He spoke often of his danger with entire openness;
but he seemed to think that he had some security in the certainty that,
if he was murdered, the Civil War would break out again, as if personal
hatred was ever checked by fear of consequences. It was something to
feel that he had not lived in vain. The Gauls were settling into
peaceful habits. The soil of Gaul was now as well cultivated as Italy.
Barges loaded with merchandise were passing freely along the Rhone and
the Saône, the Loire, the Moselle, and the Rhine. [8] The best of the
chiefs were made senators of Rome, and the people were happy and
contented. What he had done for Gaul he might, if he lived, do for
Spain, and Africa, and the East. But it was the concern of others more
than of himself. "Better," he said, "to die at once than live in
perpetual dread of treason."
[Sidenote: B.C. 44.] But Caesar was aware that conspiracies were being
formed against him; and that he spoke freely of his danger, appears
from a speech delivered in the middle of the winter by Cicero in
Caesar's presence. It has been seen that Cicero had lately spoken of
Caesar's continuance in life as a disgrace to the State. It has been
seen also that he had long thought of assassination as the readiest
means of ending it. He asserted afterward that he had not been
consulted when the murder was actually accomplished; but the
perpetrators were assured of his approbation, and when Caesar was
killed he deliberately claimed for himself a share of the guilt, if
guilt there could be in what he regarded as the most glorious
achievement in human history,[9] It maybe assumed, therefore, that
Cicero's views upon the subject had remained unchanged since the
beginning of the Civil War, and that his sentiments were no secret
among his intimate friends.
Cicero is the second great figure in the history of the time. He has
obtained the immortality which he so much desired, and we are,
therefore, entitled and obliged to scrutinize his conduct with a
niceness which would be ungracious and unnecessary in the case of a
less distinguished man. After Pharsalia he had concluded that the
continuance of the war would be unjustifiable. He had put himself in
communication with Antony and Caesar's friend and secretary Oppius, and
at their advice he went from Greece to Brindisi, to remain there till
Caesar's pleasure should be known. He was very miserable. He had joined
Pompey with confessed reluctance, and family quarrels had followed on
Pompey's defeat. His brother Quintus, whom he had drawn away from
Caesar, regretted having taken his advice. His sons and nephews were
equally querulous and dissatisfied; and for himself, he dared not
appear in the streets of Brindisi, lest Caesar's soldiers should insult
or injure him. Antony, however, encouraged him to hope. He assured him
that Caesar was well disposed to him, and would not only pardon him,
but would show him every possible favor,[10] and with these
expectations he contrived for a while to comfort himself. He had
regarded the struggle as over, and Caesar's side as completely
victorious. But gradually the scene seemed to change. Caesar was long
in returning. The optimates rallied in Africa, and there was again a
chance that they might win after all. His first thought was always for
himself. If the constitution survived under Caesar, as he was inclined
to think that in some shape it would, he had expected that a place
would be found in it for him.[11] But how if Caesar himself should not
survive? How if he should be killed in Alexandria? How if he should be
defeated by Metellus Scipio? He described himself as excruciated with
anxiety.[12] Through the year which followed he wavered from day to day
as the prospect varied, now cursing his folly for having followed the
Senate to Greece, now for having deserted them, blaming himself at one
time for his indecision, at another for having committed himself to
either side.[13]
Gradually his alarms subsided. The Senate's party was finally
overthrown. Caesar wrote to him affectionately, and allowed him to
retain his title as Imperator. When it appeared that he had nothing
personally to fear, he recovered his spirits, and he recovered along
with them a hope that the constitution might be restored, after all, by
other means than war. "Caesar could not live forever, and there were
many ways in which a man might die."
Caesar had dined with him in the country, on his way home from Spain.
He had been as kind as Cicero could wish, but had avoided politics.
When Caesar went on to Rome, Cicero followed him, resumed his place in
the Senate, which was then in the full fervor of its affected
adulation, and took an early opportunity of speaking. Marcus Marcellus
had been in exile since Pharsalia. The Senate had interceded for his
pardon, and Caesar had granted it, and granted it with a completeness
which exceeded expectation. Cicero rose to thank him in his presence,
in terms which most certainly did not express his real feelings,
whatever may have been the purpose which they concealed.
* * * * *
"He had long been silent," he said, "not from fear, but from grief and
diffidence. The time for silence was past. Thenceforward he intended to
speak his thoughts freely in his ancient manner. Such kindness, such
unheard-of generosity, such moderation in power, such incredible and
almost godlike wisdom, he felt himself unable to pass over without
giving expression to his emotions." [14] No flow of genius, no faculty
of speech or writing, could adequately describe Caesar's actions, yet
on that day he had achieved a yet greater glory. Often had Cicero
thought, and often had said to others, that no king or general had ever
performed such exploits as Caesar. In war, however, officers, soldiers,
allies, circumstances, fortune, claimed a share in the result; and
there were victories greater than could be won on the battlefield,
where the honor was undivided.
"To have conquered yourself," he said, addressing Caesar directly, "to
have restrained your resentment, not only to have restored a
distinguished opponent to his civil rights, but to have given him more
than he had lost, is a deed which raises you above humanity, and makes
you most like to God. Your wars will be spoken of to the end of time in
all lands and tongues; but in tales of battles we are deafened by the
shoutings and the blare of trumpets. Justice, mercy, moderation,
wisdom, we admire even in fiction, or in persons whom we have never
seen; how much more must we admire them in you, who are present here
before us, and in whose face we read a purpose to restore us to such
remnants of our liberty as have survived the war! How can we praise,
how can we love you sufficiently? By the gods, the very walls of this
house are eloquent with gratitude.... No conqueror in a civil war was
ever so mild as you have been. To-day you have surpassed yourself. You
have overcome victory in giving back the spoils to the conquered. By
the laws of war we were under your feet, to be destroyed, if you so
willed. We live by your goodness.... Observe, conscript fathers, how
comprehensive is Caesar's sentence. We were in arms against him, how
impelled I know not. He cannot acquit us of mistake, but he holds us
innocent of crime, for he has given us back Marcellus at your entreaty.
Me, of his own free will, he has restored to myself and to my country.
He has brought back the most illustrious survivors of the war. You see
them gathered here in this full assembly. He has not regarded them as
enemies. He has concluded that you entered into the conflict with him
rather in ignorance and unfounded fear than from any motives of
ambition or hostility.
"For me, I was always for peace. Caesar was for peace, so was
Marcellus. There were violent men among you, whose success Marcellus
dreaded. Each party had a cause. I will not compare them. I will
compare rather the victory of the one with the possible victory of the
other. Caesar's wars ended with the last battle. The sword is now
sheathed. Those whom we have lost fell in the fury of the fight, not
one by the resentment of the conqueror. Caesar, if he could, would
bring back to life many who lie dead. For the others, we all feared
what they might do if the day had been theirs. They not only threatened
those who were in arms against them, but those who sat quietly at
home."
* * * * *
Cicero then said that he had heard a fear of assassination expressed by
Caesar. By whom, he asked, could such an attempt be made? Not by those
whom he had forgiven, for none were more attached to him. Not by his
comrades, for they could not be so mad as to conspire against the
general to whom they owed all that they possessed. Not by his enemies,
for he had no enemies. Those who had been his enemies were either dead
through their own obstinacy, or were alive through his generosity. It
was possible, however, he admitted, that there might be some such
danger.
* * * * *
"Be you, therefore," he said, again speaking to Caesar,--"be you
watchful, and let us be diligent. Who is so careless of his own and the
common welfare as to be ignorant that on your preservation his own
depends, and that all our lives are bound up in yours? I, as in duty
bound, think of you by night and day; I ponder over the accidents of
humanity, the uncertainty of health, the frailty of our common nature,
and I grieve to think that the Commonwealth which ought to be immortal
should hang on the breath of a single man. If to these perils be added
a nefarious conspiracy, to what god can we turn for help? War has laid
prostrate our institutions; you alone can restore them. The courts of
justice need to be reconstituted, credit to be recovered, license to be
repressed, the thinned ranks of the citizens to be repaired. The bonds
of society are relaxed. In such a war, and with such a temper in men's
hearts, the State must have lost many of its greatest ornaments, be the
event what it would. These wounds need healing, and you alone can heal
them. With sorrow I have heard you say that you have lived long enough.
For nature it may be that you have, and perhaps for glory. But for your
country you have not. Put away, I beseech you, this contempt of death.
Be not wise at our expense. You repeat often, I am told, that you do
not wish for longer life. I believe you mean it; nor should I blame
you, if you had to think only of yourself. But by your actions you have
involved the welfare of each citizen and of the whole Commonwealth in
your own. Your work is unfinished: the foundations are hardly laid, and
is it for you to be measuring calmly your term of days by your own
desires?... If, Caesar, the result of your immortal deeds is to be no
more than this, that, after defeating your enemies, you are to leave
the State in the condition in which it now stands, your splendid
qualities will be more admired than honored. It remains for you to
rebuild the constitution. Live till this is done. Live till you see
your country tranquil, and at peace. Then, when your last debt is paid,
when you have filled the measure of your existence to overflowing, then
say, if you will, that you have had enough of life. Your life is not
the life which is bounded by the union of your soul and body, your life
is that which shall continue fresh in the memory of ages to come, which
posterity will cherish, and eternity itself keep guard over. Much has
been done which men will admire: much remains to be done, which they
can praise. They will read with wonder of empires and provinces, of the
Rhine, the ocean, and the Nile, of battles without number, of amazing
victories, of countless monuments and triumphs; but unless this
Commonwealth be wisely re-established in institutions by you bestowed
upon us, your name will travel widely over the world, but will have no
stable habitation; and those who come after us will dispute about you
as we have disputed. Some will extol you to the skies, others will find
something wanting and the most important element of all. Remember the
tribunal before which you will hereafter stand. The ages that are to be
will try you, with minds, it may be, less prejudiced than ours,
uninfluenced either by desire to please you or by envy of your
greatness.
"Our dissensions have been crushed by the arms, and extinguished by the
lenity of the conqueror. Let all of us, not the wise only, but every
citizen who has ordinary sense, be guided by a single desire. Salvation
there can be none for us, Caesar, unless you are preserved. Therefore,
we exhort you, we beseech you, to watch over your own safety. You
believe that you are threatened by a secret peril. From my own heart I
say, and I speak for others as well as myself, we will stand as
sentries over your safety, and we will interpose our own bodies between
you and any danger which may menace you." [15]
* * * * *
Such, in compressed form, for necessary brevity, but deserving to be
studied in its own brilliant language, was the speech delivered by
Cicero, in the Senate in Caesar's presence, within a few weeks of his
murder. The authenticity of it has been questioned, but without result
beyond creating a doubt whether it was edited and corrected, according
to his usual habit, by Cicero himself. The external evidence of
genuineness is as good as for any of his other orations, and the Senate
possessed no other speaker known to us, to whom, with any probability,
so splendid an illustration of Roman eloquence could be assigned.
Now, therefore, let us turn to the second Philippic delivered in the
following summer when the deed had been accomplished which Cicero
professed to hold in so much abhorrence. Then, fiercely challenging for
himself a share in the glory of tyrannicide, he exclaimed:
* * * * *
"What difference is there between advice beforehand and approbation
afterward? What does it matter whether I wished it to be done, or
rejoiced that it was done? Is there a man, save Antony and those who
were glad to have Caesar reign over us, that did not wish him to be
killed, or that disapproved when he was killed? All were in fault, for
all the _Boni_ joined in killing him, so far as lay in them. Some were
not consulted, some wanted courage, some opportunity. All were
willing," [16]
Expressions so vehemently opposite compel us to compare them. Was it
that Cicero was so carried away by the stream of his oratory, that he
spoke like an actor, under artificial emotion which the occasion called
for? Was it that he was deliberately trying to persuade Caesar that
from the Senate he had nothing to fear, and so to put him off his
guard? If, as he declared, he himself and the _Boni_, who were
listening to him, desired so unanimously to see Caesar killed, how else
can his language be interpreted? Cicero stands before the tribunal of
posterity, to which he was so fond of appealing. In him, too, while
"there is much to admire," "something may be found wanting."
Meanwhile the Senate went its way, still inventing fresh titles and
conferring fresh powers. Caesar said that these vain distinctions
needed limitation, rather than increase; but the flattery had a purpose
in it, and would not be checked.
One day a deputation waited on him with the proffer of some "new
marvel." [17] He was sitting in front of the Temple of Venus Genetrix,
and when the senators approached he neglected to rise to receive them.
Some said that he was moving, but that Cornelius Balbus pulled him
down. Others said that he was unwell. Pontius Aquila, a tribune, had
shortly before refused to rise to Caesar. The senators thought he meant
to read them a lesson in return. He intended to be king, it seemed; the
constitution was gone, another Tarquin was about to seize the throne of
Republican Rome.
Caesar was king in fact, and to recognize facts is more salutary than
to ignore them. An acknowledgment of Caesar as king might have made the
problem of reorganization easier than it proved. The army had thought
of it. He was on the point of starting for Parthia, and a prophecy had
said that the Parthians could only be conquered by a king.--But the
Roman people were sensitive about names. Though their liberties were
restricted for the present, they liked to hope that one day the Forum
might recover its greatness. The Senate, meditating on the insult which
they had received, concluded that Caesar might be tempted, and that if
they could bring him to consent he would lose the people's hearts. They
had already made him Dictator for life; they voted next that he really
should be King, and, not formally perhaps, but tentatively, they
offered him the crown. He was sounded as to whether he would accept it.
He understood the snare, and refused. What was to be done next? He
would soon be gone to the East. Rome and its hollow adulations would
lie behind him, and their one opportunity would be gone also. They
employed some one to place a diadem on the head of his statue which
stood upon the Rostra.[18] It was done publicly, in the midst of a vast
crowd, in Caesar's presence. Two eager tribunes tore the diadem down,
and ordered the offender into custody. The treachery of the Senate was
not the only danger. His friends in the army had the same ambition for
him. A few days later, as he was riding through the streets, he was
saluted as King by the mob. Caesar answered calmly that he was not King
but Caesar, and there the matter might have ended; but the tribunes
rushed into the crowd to arrest the leaders; a riot followed, for which
Caesar blamed them; they complained noisily; he brought their conduct
before the Senate, and they were censured and suspended. But suspicion
was doing its work, and honest republican hearts began to heat and
kindle.
The kingship assumed a more serious form on the 15th of February at the
Lupercalia--the ancient carnival. Caesar was in his chair, in his
consular purple, wearing a wreath of bay, wrought in gold. The honor of
the wreath was the only distinction which he had accepted from the
Senate with pleasure. He retained a remnant of youthful vanity, and the
twisted leaves concealed his baldness. Antony, his colleague in the
consulship, approached with a tiara, and placed it on Caesar's head,
saying, "The people give you this by my hand." That Antony had no
sinister purpose is obvious. He perhaps spoke for the army;[19] or it
may be that Caesar himself suggested Antony's action, that he might end
the agitation of so dangerous a subject. He answered in a loud voice
"that the Romans had no king but God," and ordered that the tiara
should be taken to the Capitol, and placed on the statue of Jupiter
Olympius. The crowd burst into an enthusiastic cheer; and an
inscription on a brass tablet recorded that the Roman people had
offered Caesar the crown by the hands of the consul, and that Caesar
had refused it.
The question of the kingship was over; but a vague alarm had been
created, which answered the purpose of the optimates. Caesar was at
their mercy any day. They had sworn to maintain all his acts. They had
sworn, after Cicero's speech, individually and collectively to defend
his life. Caesar, whether he believed them sincere or not, had taken
them at their word, and came daily to the Senate unarmed and without a
guard. He had a protection in the people. If the optimates killed him
without preparation, they knew that they would be immediately
massacred. But an atmosphere of suspicion and uncertainty had been
successfully generated, of which they determined to take immediate
advantage. There were no troops in the city. Lepidus, Caesar's master
of the horse, who had been appointed governor of Gaul, was outside the
gates, with a few cohorts; but Lepidus was a person of feeble
character, and they trusted to be able to deal with him.
Sixty senators, in all, were parties to the immediate conspiracy. Of
these nine-tenths were members of the old faction whom Caesar had
pardoned, and who, of all his acts, resented most that he had been able
to pardon them. They were the men who had stayed at home, like Cicero,
from the fields of Thapsus and Munda, and had pretended penitence and
submission that they might take an easier road to rid themselves of
their enemy. Their motives were the ambition of their order and
personal hatred of Caesar; but they persuaded themselves that they were
animated by patriotism, and as, in their hands, the Republic had been a
mockery of liberty, so they aimed at restoring it by a mock
tyrannicide. Their oaths and their professions were nothing to them. If
they were entitled to kill Caesar, they were entitled equally to
deceive him. No stronger evidence is needed of the demoralization of
the Roman Senate than the completeness with which they were able to
disguise from themselves the baseness of their treachery. One man only
they were able to attract into co-operation who had a reputation for
honesty, and could be conceived, without absurdity, to be animated by a
disinterested purpose.
Marcus Brutus was the son of Cato's sister Servilia, the friend, and a
scandal said the mistress, of Caesar. That he was Caesar's son was not
too absurd for the credulity of Roman drawing-rooms. Brutus himself
could not have believed in the existence of such a relation, for he was
deeply attached to his mother; and although, under the influence of his
uncle Cato, he had taken the Senate's side in the war, he had accepted
afterward not pardon only from Caesar, but favors of many kinds, for
which he had professed, and probably felt, some real gratitude. He had
married Cato's daughter Portia, and on Cato's death had published a
eulogy upon him. Caesar left him free to think and write what he
pleased. He had made him praetor; he had nominated him to the
governorship of Macedonia. Brutus was perhaps the only member of the
senatorial party in whom Caesar felt genuine confidence. His known
integrity, and Caesar's acknowledged regard for him, made his accession
to the conspiracy an object of particular importance. The name of
Brutus would be a guarantee to the people of rectitude of intention.
Brutus, as the world went, was of more than average honesty. He had
sworn to be faithful to Caesar as the rest had sworn, and an oath with
him was not a thing to be emotionalized away; but he was a fanatical
republican, a man of gloomy habits, given to dreams and omens, and
easily liable to be influenced by appeals to visionary feelings. Caius
Cassius, his brother-in-law, was employed to work upon him. Cassius,
too, was praetor that year, having been also nominated to office by
Caesar. He knew Brutus, he knew where and how to move him. He reminded
him of the great traditions of his name. A Brutus had delivered Rome
from the Tarquins. The blood of a Brutus was consecrated to liberty.
This, too, was mockery; Brutus, who expelled the Tarquins, put his sons
to death, and died childless; Marcus Brutus came of good plebeian
family, with no glories of tyrannicide about them; but an imaginary
genealogy suited well with the spurious heroics which veiled the
motives of Caesar's murderers.
Brutus, once wrought upon, became with Cassius the most ardent in the
cause which assumed the aspect to him of a sacred duty. Behind them
were the crowd of senators of the familiar faction, and others worse
than they, who had not even the excuse of having been partisans of the
beaten cause; men who had fought at Caesar's side till the war was
over, and believed, like Labienus, that to them Caesar owed his
fortune, and that he alone ought not to reap the harvest. One of these
was Trebonius, who had misconducted himself in Spain, and was smarting
under the recollection of his own failures. Trebonius had long before
sounded Antony on the desirableness of removing their chief. Antony,
though he remained himself true, had unfortunately kept his friend's
counsel. Trebonius had been named by Caesar for a future consulship,
but a distant reward was too little for him. Another and a yet baser
traitor was Decimus Brutus, whom Caesar valued and trusted beyond all
his officers, whom he had selected as guardian for Augustus, and had
noticed, as was seen afterward, with special affection in his will. The
services of these men were invaluable to the conspirators on account of
their influence with the army. Decimus Brutus, like Labienus, had
enriched himself in Caesar's campaigns, and had amassed near half a
million of English money.[20] It may have been easy to persuade him and
Trebonius that a grateful Republic would consider no recompense too
large to men who would sacrifice their commander to their country. To
Caesar they could be no more than satellites; the first prizes of the
Empire would be offered to the choice of the saviours of the
constitution.
So composed was this memorable band, to whom was to fall the bad
distinction of completing the ruin of the senatorial rule. Caesar would
have spared something of it; enough, perhaps, to have thrown up shoots
again as soon as he had himself passed away in the common course of
nature. By combining in a focus the most hateful characteristics of the
order, by revolting the moral instincts of mankind by ingratitude and
treachery, they stripped their cause by their own hands of the false
glamour which they hoped to throw over it. The profligacy and avarice,
the cynical disregard of obligation, which had marked the Senate's
supremacy for a century, had exhibited abundantly their unfitness for
the high functions which had descended to them; but custom and natural
tenderness for a form of government, the past history of which had been
so glorious, might have continued still to shield them from the penalty
of their iniquities. The murder of Caesar filled the measure of their
crimes, and gave the last and necessary impulse to the closing act of
the revolution.
Thus the ides of March drew near. Caesar was to set out in a few days
for Parthia. Decimus Brutus was going, as governor, to the north of
Italy, Lepidus to Gaul, Marcus Brutus to Macedonia, and Trebonius to
Asia Minor. Antony, Caesar's colleague in the consulship, was to remain
in Italy. Dolabella, Cicero's son-in-law, was to be consul with him as
soon as Caesar should have left for the East. The foreign appointments
were all made for five years, and in another week the party would be
scattered. The time for action had come, if action there was to be.
Papers were dropped in Brutus's room, bidding him awake from his sleep.
On the statue of Junius Brutus some hot republican wrote "Would that
thou wast alive!" The assassination in itself was easy, for Caesar
would take no precautions. So portentous an intention could not be kept
entirely secret; many friends warned him to beware; but he disdained
too heartily the worst that his enemies could do to him to vex himself
with thinking of them, and he forbade the subject to be mentioned any
more in his presence. Portents, prophecies, soothsayings, frightful
aspects in the sacrifices, natural growths of alarm and excitement,
were equally vain. "Am I to be frightened," he said, in answer to some
report of the haruspices, "because a sheep is without a heart?"
[Sidenote: March 14, B.C. 44.] An important meeting of the Senate had
been called for the ides (the 15th) of the month. The Pontifices, it
was whispered, intended to bring on again the question of the kingship
before Caesar's departure. The occasion would be appropriate. The
senate-house itself was a convenient scene of operations. The
conspirators met at supper the evening before at Cassius's house.
Cicero, to his regret, was not invited. The plan was simple, and was
rapidly arranged. Caesar would attend unarmed. The senators not in the
secret would be unarmed also. The party who intended to act were to
provide themselves with poniards, which could be easily concealed in
their paper boxes. So far all was simple; but a question rose whether
Caesar only was to be killed, or whether Antony and Lepidus were to be
despatched along with him. They decided that Caesar's death would be
sufficient. To spill blood without necessity would mar, it was thought,
the sublimity of their exploit. Some of them liked Antony. None
supposed that either he or Lepidus would be dangerous when Caesar was
gone. In this resolution Cicero thought that they made a fatal
mistake;[21] fine emotions were good in their place, in the perorations
of speeches and such like; Antony, as Cicero admitted, had been
signally kind to him; but the killing Caesar was a serious business,
and his friends should have died along with him. It was determined
otherwise. Antony and Lepidus were not to be touched. For the rest, the
assassins had merely to be in their places in the Senate in good time.
When Caesar entered, Trebonius was to detain Antony in conversation at
the door. The others were to gather about Caesar's chair on pretence of
presenting a petition, and so could make an end. A gang of gladiators
were to be secreted in the adjoining theatre to be ready should any
unforeseen difficulty present itself.
The same evening, the 14th of March, Caesar was at a "Last Supper" at
the house of Lepidus. The conversation turned on death, and on the kind
of death which was most to be desired. Caesar, who was signing papers
while the rest wore talking, looked up and said, "A sudden one." When
great men die, imagination insists that all nature shall have felt the
shock. Strange stories were told in after years of the uneasy labors of
the elements that night.
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves did open, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and jibber in the Roman streets.
The armor of Mars, which stood in the hall of the Pontifical Palace,
crashed down upon the pavement. The door of Caesar's room flew open.
Calpurnia dreamt her husband was murdered, and that she saw him
ascending into heaven, and received by the hand of God.[22] In the
morning the sacrifices were again unfavorable. Caesar was restless.
Some natural disorder affected his spirits, and his spirits were
reacting on his body. Contrary to his usual habit, he gave way to
depression. He decided, at his wife's entreaty, that he would not
attend the Senate that day.
[Sidenote: March 15, B.C. 44.] The house was full. The conspirators
were in their places with their daggers ready. Attendants came in to
remove Caesar's chair. It was announced that he was not coming. Delay
might be fatal. They conjectured that he already suspected something. A
day's respite, and all might be discovered. His familiar friend whom he
trusted--the coincidence is striking!--was employed to betray him.
Decimus Brutus, whom it was impossible for him to distrust, went to
entreat his attendance, giving reasons to which he knew that Caesar
would listen, unless the plot had been actually betrayed. It was now
eleven in the forenoon. Caesar shook off his uneasiness, and rose to
go. As he crossed the hall, his statue fell, and shivered on the
stones. Some servant, perhaps, had heard whispers, and wished to warn
him. As he still passed on, a stranger thrust a scroll into his hand,
and begged him to read it on the spot. It contained a list of the
conspirators, with a clear account of the plot. He supposed it to be a
petition, and placed it carelessly among his other papers. The fate of
the Empire hung upon a thread, but the thread was not broken, As Caesar
had lived to reconstruct the Roman world, so his death was necessary to
finish the work. He went on to the Curia, and the senators said to
themselves that the augurs had foretold his fate, but he would not
listen; he was doomed for his "contempt of religion." [23]
Antony, who was in attendance, was detained, as had been arranged, by
Trebonius. Caesar entered, and took his seat. His presence awed men, in
spite of themselves, and the conspirators had determined to act at
once, lest they should lose courage to act at all. He was familiar and
easy of access. They gathered round him. He knew them all. There was
not one from whom he had not a right to expect some sort of gratitude,
and the movement suggested no suspicion. One had a story to tell him;
another some favor to ask. Tullius Cimber, whom he had just made
governor of Bithynia, then came close to him, with some request which
he was unwilling to grant. Cimber caught his gown, as if in entreaty,
and dragged it from his shoulders. Cassius,[24] who was standing
behind, stabbed him in the throat. He started up with a cry, and caught
Cassius's arm. Another poniard entered his breast, giving a mortal
wound. He looked round, and seeing not one friendly face, but only a
ring of daggers pointing at him, he drew his gown over his head,
gathered the folds about him that he might fall decently, and sank down
without uttering another word,[25] Cicero was present. The feelings
with which he watched the scene are unrecorded, but may easily be
imagined. Waving his dagger, dripping with Caesar's blood, Brutus
shouted to Cicero by name, congratulating him that liberty was
restored.[26] The Senate rose with shrieks and confusion, and rushed
into the Forum. The crowd outside caught the words that Caesar was
dead, and scattered to their houses. Antony, guessing that those who
had killed Caesar would not spare himself, hurried off into
concealment. The murderers, bleeding some of them from wounds which
they had given one another in their eagerness, followed, crying that
the tyrant was dead, and that Rome was free; and the body of the great
Caesar was left alone in the house where a few weeks before Cicero told
him that he was so necessary to his country that every senator would
die before harm should reach him!
[1] Apparently when Caesar touched there on his way to Egypt, after
Pharsalia. Cicero says (_Philippic_ ii. 11): "Quid? C.
Cassius ... qui etiam sine his clarissimis viris, hanc rem in Cilicia
ad ostium fluminis Cydni confecisset, si ille ad eam ripam quam
constituerat, non ad contrariam, navi appulisset."
[2] To be distinguished from Publius Ligarius, who had been put to death
before Thapsus.
[3] The Gauls were especially obnoxious, and epigrams were circulated to
insult them:--
"Gallos Caesar in triumphum ducit, idem in Curiam.
Galli braccas deposuerunt, latum clavum sumpserunt"
SUETONIUS, _Vita Jullii Caesaris_, 80.
[4] Suetonius.
[5] The fifth, dating the beginning of the year, in the old style, from
March.
[6] Dion Cassius.
[7] The second consul who had been put in held office but for a few
hours.
[8] Dion Cassius.
[9] See the 2nd _Philippic_, passim. In a letter to Decimus Brutus,
he says: "Quare hortatione tu quidem non egos, si ne illâ quidem in
re, quae a te gesta est post hominum memoriam maximâ, hortatorem
desiderâsti." _Ad Fam_. xi. 5.
[10] _To Atticus_, xi. 5, 6.
[11] _Ad Caelium, Ad Fam_. ii. 16.
[12] _To Atticus_, xi. 7.
[13] See _To Atticus_, xi. 7-9; _To Terentia, Ad Fam_. xiv. 12.
[14] "Tantam enim mansuetudinem, tam inusitatam inauditamque clementiam,
tantum in summâ potestate rerum omnium modum, tam denique incredibilem
sapientiam ac paene divinam tacitus nullo modo praeterire
possum."--_Pro Marco Marcello_, 1.
[15] _Pro Marco Marcello_, abridged.
[16] "Non intelligis, si id quod me arguis voluisse interfici Caesarem
crimen sit, etiam laetatum esse morte Caesaris crimen esse? Quid enim
interest inter suasorem facti et approbatorem? Aut quid refert utrum
voluerim fieri an gaudeam factum? Ecquis est igitur te excepto et iis
qui illum regnare gaudebant, qui illud aut fieri noluerit, aut factum
improbarit? Omnes enim in culpâ. Etenim omnes boni quantum in ipsis
fuit Caesarem occiderunt. Aliis consilium, aliis animus, aliis occasio
defuit. Voluntas nemini."--_2nd Philippic_, 12.
[17] Dion Cassius.
[18] So Dion Cassius states, on what authority we know not. Suetonius says
that as Caesar was returning from the Latin festival some one placed a
laurel crown on the statue, tied with a white riband.
[19] The fact is certain. Cicero taunted Antony with it in the Senate,
in
the Second Philippic.
[20] "Cum ad rem publicam liberandam accessi, HS. mihi fuit
quadringenties amplius."--_Decimus Brutus to Cicero,
Ad Fam_. xi. 10.
[21] "Vellem Idibus Martiis me ad coenam invitâsses. Reliquiarum nihil
fuisset."--_Ad Cassium, Ad Fam_. xii. 4. And again: "Quam vellem
ad illas pulcherrimas epulas me Idibus Martiis invitâsses! Reliquiarum
nihil haberemus."--_Ad Trebonium, Ad Fam_. x. 28.
[22] Dion Cassius, _C. Julius Caesar_, xliv. 17.
[23] "Spretâ religione."--Suetonius.
[24] Not perhaps Caius Cassius, but another. Suetonius says "alter e
Cassiis."
[25] So says Suetonius, the best extant authority, who refers to the
famous words addressed to Brutus only as a legend: "Atque ita tribus
et viginti plagis confossus est, uno modo ad primum ictum gemitu sine
voce edito. Etsi tradiderunt quidam Marco Bruto irruenti dixisse
[Greek: kai su ei ekeinon kai su teknon]"--_Julius Caesar_, 82.
[26] "Cruentum alte extollens Marcus Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem
nominatim exclamavit atque ei recuperatam libertatem est
gratulatus."--_Philippic ii_. 12.