Caesar Read online

  "So this is Mouse," he said, "little Mouse of whom I have heard such fine things. They tell me you love Greek poetry." I nodded.

  "So do I, boy. We must discourse on it at some future and more propitious moment."

  Then he laughed, a laugh of pure merriment, and left me. I turned and followed him out of the house, watching him tip the porter, and my eyes lingered on him as he strolled away. Crossing the courtyard he tossed his folded toga over his shoulder. I had never seen a gentleman show himself in public in such a state of undress. I know now he took pleasure in advertising his conquests. I had no idea then why he had been in our house, and I did not understand that he was my mother's lover.

  Of course he cared nothing for her. She, on the other hand, adored him. When I went through to see her, it was as if I was looking on someone I had never met.

  In those days Caesar had not yet won a military reputation. He was known only for his debauchery and debts. But that too I learned later. When I heard men speak of Caesar in those terms, I could not connect the man so described with the magnificent carelessness of his manner. At the age of ten I became his slave even as my mother was. It was a secret we shared and kept from everyone, especially my father: our adoration of Caesar.

  Later, I overheard my uncle ask him why he had not divorced my mother.

  "On account of Caesar?" my father said. "Dear boy, if every husband whom Caesar has cuckolded did that, Rome would be bereft of married couples. She is not likely to betray me with any other man. All us husbands make an exception of Caesar."

  Perhaps you see now why his soldiers sang in his Triumph:

  Home we bring the bald whoremonger,

  Romans, lock your wives away,

  All his Gallic slaves and tribute,

  Went his Gallic whores to pay.

  And not only Gallic whores, that's for sure. Of course on one celebrated, but never fully explained, occasion, Caesar was on the other side, as it were, of the fence.

  As a young man, when serving as an aide-de-camp to Marcus Thermus, the proconsul of Asia, Caesar was despatched on a diplomatic mission to King Nicomedes of Bithynia. Nobody knows exactly what transpired there, but I have heard Cicero (admittedly an inveterate and unreliable gossip) declare that "Caesar was led by Nicomedes' attendants to the royal bedroom, where he lay on a golden couch, clad in a purple shifts Imagine that, my friends. Yes, indeed, that was how this descendant of Venus lost his virginity in Bithynia." That may be nonsense, is almost certainly embroidered. But it was widely believed. The versifier Licinius Calvus published a little squib about

  The riches of Bithynia's King

  Who Caesar on his bed abused.

  And once when Caesar was arguing in the Senate in defence of Nicomedes' daughter Nysa, and listing his own obligations to the King, Cicero, again, shouted out in his excitable provincial manner: "Enough of that, if you please. We all know what he gave you, and what you surrendered to him in return."

  And it is true that there were certain Roman merchants in Bithynia at the time, who doubtless recounted what happened there; there is no good reason to suppose that their version was all lies.

  Anyway, these things were widely bruited in Rome even when I was a boy, and that made Caesar appear in a curious fashion still more dazzling. Any other man would have been overwhelmed by the shame of it. Any other man would have hid his face and shunned public life. Not Caesar. He carried it off with the same swagger with which he could confront the son of the woman from whose bed he had risen. But I have often wondered whether he set himself to achieve the reputation he did win as a ladies' man precisely because of this stain on his honour. After all, nobody objects to a man who chooses to make love to boys, but to submit to the embraces of a man older than yourself is considered dishonourable in an adult. We call such a man a pathic, and generally despise him. That's true even of the Greeks, as you can read in Plato. Incidentally, Bibulus, who shared a consulship with Caesar in 59, actually described him in an edict as "The Queen of Bithynia who once wanted to sleep with a monarch, but now wants to be one."

  Well, that comes closer to the point, of course.

  What I am saying may appear evasive to any reader of this memoir — if I survive to finish it, and if it survives to find a reader - but I do not think the events in which I was concerned can begin to be understood if Caesar himself, in his manifold variety, is not at least offered for understanding.

  Which leaves me with the question I can't answer: was there any other reason why the disgraceful episode with King Nicomedes did him so little lasting damage?

  I once, years later, asked my mother if she believed Caesar had ever really loved her. She laughed.

  "Of course not, darling," she said. "I adored him, but that was quite different. I couldn't even deceive myself at the time. I knew for instance that he was carrying on another affair simultaneously, with Postumia Sulpicius — a very silly woman by the way. No, Caesar wasn't like Pompey, who, it may surprise you to know, really adored the women with whom he was engaged. Of course, there was another difference. Pompey as a young man was really beautiful. You won't believe that, looking at him now; but he was so beautiful we used to say that every woman just wanted to bite him. Caesar was, I suppose, handsome, in a cold sneering sort of way, but it wasn't his looks that won him his successes, which, by the way, included Pompey's second wife, Mucia - or was she his third, I can't remember. Anyway she was the mother of three of his children, and Pompey thought she was absolutely secure. And so she was, till Caesar came along. He used to call Caesar 'Aegisthus', you know." "Aegisthus?"

  "Oh, you are slow, Mouse. Aegisthus, the lover of Clytemnestra. Mind you, this didn't stop Pompey from marrying Caesar's daughter, years later. But you know that, of course. Poor girl."

  "Poor girl?"

  "Well, Pompey was impotent by then, Mouse, besides being usually drunk by bedtime, they say. No, if you ask me there was only one woman that Caesar ever came close to loving, and I've never understood why."

  "Who was that?"

  "Servilia. Your cousin Marcus' mother." "Servilia, that dragon?"

  "She may seem a dragon to you, Mouse, but she's a very clever woman. She knew how to hold Caesar. He kept returning to her."

  "Well, I knew of course that they were allies, and that they'd had an affair. That was no secret. We used to make Markie weep about it when we were children. But all the same, that bore, with her constant talk about virtue and her relationship to the Gracchi. You really think he loved her?"

  "Yes," my mother said, "which didn't stop her from prostituting your cousin Tertia for Caesar's delight."

  Tertia was a sweet little thing, not like her mother at all. She took to drink and died young. Perhaps my mother was right after all.

  And of course Cicero, I remember, uttered one of his bons mots on the subject. When Caesar arranged two or three years ago to have some confiscated estates knocked down cheap to Servilia at what was supposed to be a public auction, Cicero said:

  "It was even cheaper than you think, because a third (tertia) part had been discounted."

  It was rumoured, of course, that Marcus Brutus was Caesar's son. When he was a small boy, this accusation would also reduce him to tears of shame and fury. Later, he rather encouraged the notion, while professing that it was impossible. Like all people who parade their virtue, my cousin Markie is a twister, Janus-faced.

  Young Artixes said to me: "You talked of his charm and authority. But all I see is a scoundrel. And I am still amazed that you could follow such a man. It was clear to us Gauls that he was a destructive force. Couldn't you feel that yourself?"

  "Artixes," I said, "I don't know if you have heard what Marcus Cato said."

  "I don't even know who Cato was."

  "You're fortunate. Anyway, he said: 'Caesar was the only sober man who ever tried to wreck the Constitution.'" "I don't understand what you mean by that." "Never mind."

  "Come," I said to Artixes, seeing disappointment in his face, "let us take a
stroll in the evening air, and I'll try to explain."

  (The circumstances of my arrest are not, you see, at present either arduous or oppressive. I am rather well treated, in fact, and I am having to revise my notions about Gallic civilisation. It is true that such wine as they have is abominable, but my comforts are considered, and the food is tolerable. Best of all, I have a sort of wild garden in which I am permitted to walk — under supervision, of course. It descends to a river, and there are mountains across the plain. It is pleasant in the evening under the chestnut trees, with the scent of ilex in the air. And young Artixes is a charming companion; I have really grown quite fond of him.)

  The evening air was soft. Birds sang. A dog barked in the village below. The laughter of girls rose towards us, and Artixes said, "What do you mean by the Constitution? This is a word I have heard Romans speak before and it always puzzles me."

  "It puzzles us too," I said. "That is part of the problem. You must understand, Artixes, that years ago Rome was ruled, as your tribes are, by kings."

  "Well," he said, "that's only natural. Everyone has kings, surely."

  "Not exactly. Some states are what we call republics. No, don't ask me to explain, you will understand what a republic is when I have finished. But if I explain every word then we'll never get anywhere. Now the Romans were dissatisfied with their kings."

  "Why?"

  "Well, first, they were foreigners." "I call that feeble, to take foreigners for kings." "Perhaps it was, I don't know, it was a long time ago. Then the son of the King was a bad man." "What did he do?" "Raped a girl."

  He looked at me with what I took to be dismay, lost again.

  "But he was the King's son," he said. "Surely she should have been honoured to do his bidding."

  "You might think so, but she wasn't, and her father and brothers were very angry. They rose up against the King and drove him out of the city."

  "Yes," he said, "I understand that. So they made themselves kings."

  "Not exactly. The Romans then decided kings were a bad idea. Don't ask me why. They just did. So they decided to have a new, different form of government. Instead of one man being king for life, they would divide the government between two men who would be equal to each other, and who would only hold power for a year. They weren't called kings, but consuls."

  "Were they killed at the end of the year?"

  "No."

  "Then how did they persuade them to give up power?" "They just did. Those were the rules." "And this still happens?"

  "We still have consuls. I should have been consul myself next year."

  "And now you're not. You're here instead." "Yes. Only nowadays the consuls don't have much real power."

  "I understand. This way of doing things doesn't work."

  "It worked well for a long time. Very well. Too well perhaps. Rome became great and powerful. You know that, you have felt our power. We conquered other countries and tribes and extended our Empire."

  "Yes, you kill people and call it peace."

  "If you say so, but that's not how we see it. Anyway the Empire became so big that generals had to command armies and provinces for a long time, and in the end the generals became more powerful than the consuls."

  "So the generals became kings."

  "Not exactly."

  Sometimes I wonder if Artixes is quite as ingenuous as he seems to be. He has after all lived in Rome, admittedly in a species of detention. He must know more about Roman politics than he pretends. But when he looks at me with his blue eyes wide open, and smiles in that frank admiring fashion, I can't think him other than innocent.

  And yet ... I put my arm round his shoulder.

  "Artixes, you know all this, I think."

  He smiled again.

  "Well, some of it," he said.

  "So it's a game."

  "It's interesting to hear how you explain it. And I do want to know about Caesar, and why you followed him until . . . And these women. I've heard of the Queen of Egypt. Men say she's ravishingly beautiful."

  "Cleopatra? No, she's not that. She's more interesting than that."

  "Tell me about her."

  CHAPTER 3

  Most Romans loathe Egypt and the Egyptians. There is something about the place that disturbs us. It is, I think, on account of the ever-present consciousness of magic. Everything seems to come from the primeval slime of the Nile. The Egyptians worship animal gods, and one cult, I have been informed, expresses devotion for a dung-beetle. A stench of corruption pervades the country, and few Romans manage to get through a day without looking nervously over their shoulder or seeking reassurance that some witch has not cast a spell on them. It is foolishness, but it is infectious foolishness. Even Mark Antony was affected. He displayed a nervous anxiety which was foreign to his nature.

  It is something to do with the landscape. Even though Rome is so great a city, we Romans are by instinct and inheritance country-dwellers. We are comforted by trees, mountains, rivers, lakes, and the sea. Our rivers are friendly things compared to the brooding presence of the Nile. We are happiest, and most at ease, in our country villas. The gods of our country districts are friendly beings; every grove and spring has its tutelary spirit, and it is easy to live in harmony with such beings: easy and pleasant. There is no country, no landscape, in Egypt: instead, a waste of sands interrupted only by monuments to the dead. We Romans have a proper reverence for our ancestors, and proudly display the masks of those who have achieved renown in the service of the Republic. The Egyptians, intoxicated by the idea of death, abase themselves before the wary spirits of their dead. The land is in thrall to the idea of death.

  Of course, Alexandria is a great city, the most wonderful in the world. Alexandria, being Greek in its foundation, is not characteristic of Egypt: with its libraries, law-courts, miles of warehouses, harbours busy with the shipping of all nations of the civilised world, there is much to delight, little - it might seem - to dismay the visitor. Yet, even Alexandria has been infected by the poison of Egypt. There was an old woman in the marketplace who was said to be two hundred years old; she sold magic potions to ensure longevity. My cousin Marcus Brutus wished her to be prosecuted for fraud; Caesar only laughed. "She does no harm," he said; erroneously. Our arrival was horrid.

  After the victory at Pharsalus, where Pompey's chief army was utterly destroyed, the Great One had fled to Egypt. The country is of course nominally independent, but Roman influence has long been considerable there, and Pompey had formerly championed the cause of King Ptolemy when he was driven out of his country by rebels. Ptolemy had come to Rome, where Pompey had spoken for him in the Senate, and the King had employed lavish bribery to win still more support; he had further contrived to assassinate various members of the opposing party who had also come to Rome to plead their case. No Egyptian thinks anything of assassination, and it was said that the King's success in this enterprise regained much of the respect which he had lost. Even so, he was not successful in his main endeavour, for at that time Pompey had many enemies himself in the Senate, who feared that the restoration of Ptolemy by Roman arms would only add to Pompey's power, since Ptolemy, understanding little about our Constitution, would feel indebted to the Great One rather than to the Senate. So nothing was done on his behalf, until, as a result of the famous meeting between Pompey, Caesar and the millionaire booby Marcus Crassus at Lucca, the three of them formed what Cicero (in private) described as "a criminal conspiracy to share sovereignty and dominate the Republic". Then, as a result of their new ascendancy, Pompey's policy was put into practice, and Gabinius was ordered to lead his army from Syria and restore King Ptolemy. This he did, for he was an efficient officer, despite being also a habitual drunkard; and in any case the Egyptian army was no match for Roman legions. King Ptolemy was now dead, but had been succeeded by his two children, a boy also called Ptolemy, and a daughter Cleopatra.

  In the Egyptian fashion, these were married to each other. It is very strange. As you may know, the Egyptian royal
family is really Greek, the first Ptolemy having been one of Alexander the Great's generals, but they have so far adapted themselves to the base customs of the country they rule as to be quite happy to practise incest. Normally Greeks, however degenerate, are as averse to incest as we Romans are. The prohibition of incest is apparently of great antiquity, and I would have thought it innate in mankind; and yet the Egyptians appear to find it natural. Certainly they take no exception to it.

  Marriage did not, however, appear to exclude the rivalry which one generally finds when there are two contenders to a throne — you know how common such rivalry is in Gaul, Artixes — and the young Ptolemy and Cleopatra were said to be on such bad terms with each other (no doubt fomented by partisans) that there were even rumours of civil war.

  At any rate Pompey fled to Egypt confident that the heir of Ptolemy would show gratitude to the man who had re-established his father on the throne. Perhaps he forgot that the Ptolemies were now Orientals, and therefore unacquainted with that noble sentiment.

  Caesar was slow in pursuit, for reasons which I could not fathom and which he did not trouble himself to explain. Instead of following Pompey directly, he delayed, and made a diversion to Troy. I was among those whom he chose to invite to accompany him.

  Naturally, even though I was alarmed by his procrastination, which I feared would allow Pompey to reassemble an army and thus prolong the civil war, even perhaps reverse its course (perhaps Caesar had information which he denied me), I was honoured to be chosen, and delighted to have the opportunity to see Troy. My mother had instilled a love of Homer in me from my earliest boyhood, and of the two great epics, it has always been the Iliad to which I responded most warmly.