Caesar Read online

  My first feeling was of disappointment. Little remains of the proud towers and mighty ramparts. The scene is melancholy, the famed Scamander sluggish. Mount Ida was invisible, veiled in mist. A chill wind blew from the sea. There were mud-flats and rushes where the Greeks had camped.

  "Ten years to capture this," Trebonius said. "Homer's Greeks must have been rare incompetents."

  Trebonius always had a habit of looking down his nose at the world. Now he sneered, "And Agamemnon, Ajax and Achilles rare boobies."

  "You think so?" Caesar said.

  "Well, don't you, General? When you think of what you yourself achieved at Avaricum and Alesia, Troy looks small beer, a wretched place that wouldn't detain us seven days."

  "You are right of course, Trebonius." I could see that Caesar was annoyed. He was flexing his fingers as was his habit when he strove to control his irritation. "With command of the sea, with modern siege weapons and a trained army, we would have made short work of these poor Trojans. Is that your opinion also, Mouse?"

  Unlike Trebonius, I was responsive to Caesar's moods. I remembered how he loved to boast of his descent from Venus; I recalled that it was in those groves of oak and chestnut above Troy that she had coupled with Anchises, and given birth to the hero Aeneas, who later, guided by his mother and the other gods, escaped the burning city and sailed by slow and arduous stages to Italy, taking with him his little son lulus, from whom Caesar claimed direct descent, though all true Romans are the children of Aeneas. And so I said:

  "It is a mistake, surely, to judge antiquity by the standards of our own age. Certainly one cannot believe that either the Greeks or the Trojans would have long withstood our legions. Nevertheless, it is barbarous to laugh at them. If men ever cease to be moved by Homer, that will be the time to despair of humanity. Then we will be right to abandon all dreams of greatness. In Homer we see greatness yoked to strange infirmity, honour wrestling with dishonour in a single breast; we see all that is great and ennobling in war, and all that is terrible and abominable too. Is it not a mark of Homer's transcendent power that we weep for both Hector and Achilles? Is it not eternally true -the picture that he offers — of the unending struggle between men's will and the pressing weight of necessity? Yes, Trebonius is right: a modern army would make short work of Troy. On the other hand, what poet of today is capable of moving us as Homer does? For that reason we should venerate the sad remains of Ilium. For that reason, we come here to weep and to pay homage to the glorious dead."

  "Bravo, Mouse," Caesar said, and pinched my ear.

  And yet, though I knew I had spoken as he wished me to speak, and said the words that he desired to hear, I could not escape the certainty that he was laughing at me, even as he applauded.

  "You are becoming quite a little master of rhetoric," Casca said to me that evening.

  He sprawled in his tent, with a goblet of wine in his hand. His face was ruddy with drink. Diosippus knelt beside him, between his open knees, massaging his fleshy thighs, while Casca's left hand played with the boy's curls. Nicander stood behind his master, oiling his neck and shoulders, and scowling at Diosippus.

  "You have learned how to flatter Caesar," Casca said. I felt myself flush and looked away.

  "But I meant all I said, cousin. I cannot endure to hear Trebonius sneer at Homer. If we abandon trust in poetry, why, then we become ..." I paused, searching for words.

  "We become sensible men," Casca said. He leaned forward and kissed Diosippus on the mouth. "There is more honey in a boy's lips than in all the words of Homer. But you are wise to flatter Caesar: for your own sake. I only ask you to remember the old proverb: whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad."

  "What do you mean?"

  He stood up, letting the towel that covered his midriff fall to the ground. His belly sagged. He waddled to the couch and lay face down. The boys followed him and resumed their massage. He turned his face towards me:

  "Has Caesar spoken of his plans for a new Troy, a new Rome?"

  "No, he has said nothing about that. What do you mean?"

  "What does he mean? That is the question. Now bugger off, Mouse. You too, Dio. Leave me with Nicky."

  He stretched out his hand and thrust it between Nicander's shapely legs, pulling the boy towards him.

  * * *

  We sat on deck under a starry sky. It had been rough and was now calm. My nausea had abated. Caesar was in relaxed and friendly mood. He sipped wine mixed with water and talked of literature, and then idly of philosophy.

  Our enterprise was audacious. It had been confirmed that Pompey was in Egypt. Our own force was small. We had perhaps four thousand legionaries and eight hundred cavalry. The islanders of Rhodes had been constrained to furnish us with ten warships. Our intelligence was defective. It was rumoured that Pompey had a considerable fleet, the remnants of those legions which had survived Pharsalus, and some two or three thousand armed slaves. But we couldn't know for sure. He might have had three times that force. Yet Caesar did not appear concerned. He spoke of the effect of the prestige won by Pharsalus. "It is worth two legions," he said.

  "I was pleased, Mouse, to hear you speak of Homer as you did. I have never trusted the man who is deaf to poetry."

  "Trebonius is a good officer and devoted to your service."

  "I would trust him in the field, certainly. But he is a mean fellow, a lean fellow, a crabbit soul. Look at the stars, Mouse, look at the stars. Keep your gaze fixed on them. That is a golden rule of life and politics. The man who forgets the stars is no favourite of Destiny. He is doomed to petty struggles, capable of taking only a short view of things. The stars are my friend, Mouse. Whenever I feel the temptation to despair, I have only to gaze upward on such a night as this to recover my even and confident tenor of mind. Serenity . . ." his voice drifted away. We sat in silence, only the waves lapping against the prow.

  "What is Rome?" Caesar said. "A city, an idea . . . has it ever occurred to you to wonder why we Romans have been so favoured by Fortune? Have you considered that all history leads to this moment when Rome is the mistress of the world, and I am Rome's master?"

  "Pompey still lives, Caesar, and he has sons with armies."

  "Poor Pompey. I was fond of him, you know, Mouse. I truly thought of him as my friend, my last friend . . . and he betrayed my faith."

  "Caesar has many friends."

  "Caesar has no friends, for, with Pompey eclipsed, he has no equals, and friendship is possible only between equals. Does that seem very arrogant to you, Mouse?"

  There was no land in sight, merely the limitless sea, dark purple shading into dense night, but the stars clear above.

  "Answer me, Mouse. Does that seem very arrogant to you?"

  But I could not answer. I saw the truth of what he said, and I hated it, and would not acknowledge it.

  "Marcus Crassus thought he was my friend, because I owed him so much money. He was only my creditor. You know the story of his death."

  Of course I did. Everyone knew it and had been horrified by it, even though at the same time we were ashamed.

  Crassus had led his army against Parthia across the great desert of Arabia. Somewhere in the sands, his intelligence faulty, he had found himself surrounded by the horse archers of the enemy. Keeping out of range of our weapons, they had teased Crassus' mighty army like boys baiting a bear tied to a stake. The Romans pressed together. Many fell exhausted by the heat and the congestion. At last, Crassus, never famous for courage, roared (they say) like a wounded bull and led a mad charge. He was stopped by an arrow in the throat. His body was stripped and left for the fowls of the air, the dark birds that cast their shadows over the sands. But his head was cut off and carried to the camp of the Parthian king, who was, as it happened, watching a performance of The Bacchae. (Thus do barbarian kings imitate the practice of civilised men.) When the head of King Pentheus is brought on to the stage, some vile but ingenious actor substituted the head of old Crassus.

  Carrhae was the g
reatest disaster Roman arms had suffered since Hannibal's victory at Cannae almost two hundred years ago. It was strange that Caesar should brood on it now.

  "One day," he said, "I shall avenge Crassus."

  My mother used to speak with horror of Crassus' campaign against the leader of the slaves' revolt, Spartacus, of how, when he had defeated the slaves, he had six thousand of them crucified along the Appian Way. They lined the road from Capua to Rome. The sight and stench of the bodies, rotting in attitudes that indicated the nature of their agony, disgusted her, she used to say; for eighteen months she had been unable to bring herself to revisit our estates in the south on account of the horror that she would be compelled to see. Why did I think of this now?

  "My conquest of Gaul was glorious," Caesar said, "and yet what is Gaul, compared to the splendour of the East? Alexander never thought to carry his conquests to the West. Some day Rome must dominate Parthia. I thought, when we were at Troy, of a new Rome, born from a colony planted there on the site where our race was nurtured. From such a base. After all, Rome cannot be the centre of the world. Things come full circle, Mouse. It may be that my Destiny is to retrace the path taken by my ancestor Aeneas, and then . . . but I am already twenty years older than Alexander when he died . . . still, Destiny ... It is a paradox, Mouse, which you have understood in Homer. We act by reason of the force of our will, and yet Destiny governs all. What shall I do with Pompey when I take him, Mouse?"

  That was another question I found hard. With what crime could Pompey be charged? Though we were sure that Caesar's decision to invade Italy was justified, nevertheless Pompey had opposed us by the will, the explicit order, of the Senate. I could not conceive of any legal action that could be brought against him, and I could not believe that Caesar would willingly order any Roman citizen - least of all Pompey, who had once been married to his daughter Julia - to be put to death without trial. Besides, how often had I heard Caesar deplore the conduct of Sulla who had restored order to Rome after an earlier civil war by murdering his enemies.

  I said: "I cannot believe that Pompey will choose to survive his disgrace."

  "You don't know Pompey, Mouse. He will not feel disgraced. He will feel he was betrayed. He will be full of resentment, not shame. Resentful men do not fall on their sword. How calm the night is, a night for talk of love, not death. Have you broken with Clodia, Mouse?"

  I had not imagined that Caesar knew of my passion for the lady. I did not reply.

  "She will bring you nothing but harm," Caesar said. "Besides, she's old enough to be your mother."

  I wonder if he thought then of that morning when I had seen him emerge from my mother's room. Perhaps not; great conquerors can't be expected to recall their every conquest.

  We sighted Alexandria early on a bright morning. It was late summer and not yet hot. The city shone before us. I had not imagined so many white and sparkling palaces or the beautiful curves of coast and harbour. Gardens of villas brilliant with flowers, ran down to the water.

  Then a galley put out from the port to meet us. Caesar smiled. He was sure that it contained a deputation of notables come to honour him. He was (as usual) right. They boarded our ship, some of the older ones finding the transition difficult, and being forced into ludicrous positions. A bald man, with deep brown eyes and sagging jowls, advanced towards Caesar. He introduced himself as their spokesman, by name Theodotus, a Greek who had won some celebrity, as I learned subsequently, as a professional lecturer; his counsel was now said to be valued by the young King Ptolemy, whose tutor he had formerly been.

  "And more than tutor, I'll wager," Casca said.

  Now Theodotus extended his left arm in one of those exaggerated gestures which are the stock-in-trade of the professional rhetorician, beings never far divorced from the world of the actor.

  Two Nubian slaves, tall glistening fellows, naked but for loincloths and elaborate head-dresses, responded. The taller of them dived into a basket and withdrew an object wrapped in cloth. There was clearly going to be some sort of presentation. The second Nubian spread a carpet before Caesar and remained kneeling, while his companion also knelt and began to unwrap the parcel. He removed a succession of cotton cloths. The first two were crimson, the third white with a brownish stain.

  "Now," Theodotus cried, his voice commanding.

  It was years since I had seen Pompey in the flesh, and at first I was not certain it was the flesh. I thought they had toppled a statue and removed the head as an earnest of their benevolent intentions towards Caesar.

  But Caesar stepped back, threw his hands up, covered his face as a widow does. The Nubian adjusted the position of the severed head. I was standing at an angle and it seemed as if Pompey was smiling. But that must have been some optical delusion.

  Trebonius stepped forward, and, twitching a cloth from the Nubian, covered Pompey's head.

  Theodotus was speaking. I think he was claiming credit for himself in the organisation of the assassination of Caesar's enemy. He stretched out his hand towards the General, opening it to reveal a ring. Caesar, as if he acted without thought, took the ring, held it up for a moment, and passed it to me: the engraving showed a lion holding a sword between his paws.

  Theodotus said: "He was endeavouring to form an army, to maintain the prosecution of this terrible war which has been so grievous to all lovers of Rome, of peace and of Caesar. He had partisans in the city, adherents of the King's sister who has set herself up against His Majesty. It was necessary to act. We did so for the safety of Egypt and out of friendship for Caesar." He bowed low. "Dead men don't bite, General," he said.

  We were all horrified by what we had seen; yet we stood there and listened as this well-larded man, whom I had at once marked as a consummate hypocrite, argued that it was greatly to Caesar's advantage both that Pompey should be dead, and that he himself should have played no part in the execution of his rival. "You may consider, Caesar, that in our zeal to do you service, we have acted, with uncommon dexterity and good judgment, as a species of deus ex machina."

  And Caesar, though he stood there weeping, could not hide the truth of these words from himself.

  "When Caesar has had time to reflect, he will understand that our gift to him is priceless. Now he may indulge in grief for his dead rival, his former friend, but when he retires tonight, his heart will swell with the knowledge that we have done for him what he would have had done, and that he is yet innocent of Pompey's blood."

  He then invited Caesar to take up residence in the royal palace as the guest of his absent majesty.

  "It seems to me," Artixes said, "that Caesar was at least as great a hypocrite as this Greek whom you revile, for he must have been pleased just as the Greek assured him he would be."

  "Of course," I said, "but his tears were genuine none the less. You have heard what he said about Pompey. You must understand the solitude he knew when he saw that Pompey was no more."

  And then I recited to the boy that great passage in which Homer tells how the aged Priam came to the Greeks' camp to beg the body of his slaughtered son, the hero Hector. I forgot in my emotion that Artixes does not understand Greek, but he listened intently. I suppose the music captivated him. Besides, barbarians are accustomed to long paeans of praise for dead heroes, and I don't suppose they listen carefully to the words.

  I did not tell him that that evening Caesar said to me:

  "First Crassus, then Pompey. Their heads looked well set on their shoulders back at Lucca."

  "I saw how deeply you were moved, General."

  "Cruel necessity, Mouse. Never lose the capacity to weep. Nothing unmans a man so surely as the refusal or inability to cry at appropriate moments."

  It was soon evident that, despite the murder of Pompey, our situation in Alexandria was full of danger. As I have said, Caesar had rashly brought only a small force with him. The Egyptian army, though probably contemptible, was large. There were also troops composed of Roman veterans, old soldiers of Gabinius, who had remained
in the country, and had now been re-formed in the semblance of an army. No one could be sure whom they obeyed. Most dangerous of all was the Alexandria mob. Trained legionaries may have no fear of regular troops, but they hate street-fighting against an enemy that is hard to identify, that comes and goes, that resorts to murder in back alleys, that profits from its own irregular nature.

  Caesar was aware of these dangers, yet seemed careless of them. When news came that Pothinus, a palace eunuch, had summoned troops from Pelusium, and given command to Achillas, the officer who, we believed, had murdered Pompey, Caesar was strangely indolent. He remained in the palace near the harbour working on his memoirs of the Gallic War. I urged him to action; he merely smiled. "Time enough," he said. I could not understand his lassitude.

  There were riots in the streets. I took it upon myself to order that the legionaries be confined to our camp by the harbour. Then word was brought that an Egyptian fleet, perhaps that which had been sent to Greece in aid of Pompey, was anchored in the inner basin. Our escape to the sea was blocked. Still, Caesar did nothing but dictate to his secretaries.

  What was to be done? The chief officers held a council of war in his absence.

  "What is the General doing?" someone - I cannot at this distance recall who - enquired.

  "Playing with fire," Casca said. "He is bored by success."

  This was nonsense. Caesar was stricken by one of those unaccountable spells of lassitude which in the past had preceded some of his greatest victories.

  "He is waiting for a sign."

  It was time to provide one. I again assumed responsibility, and commanded the docks to be set alight. The fire spread to the Egyptian ships in the inner basin. Some were burned; others fled seawards. For the moment our position was eased. Following up this success — slight though it was - I despatched two centuries to seize the Pharos and the mole which connected it with the town. There was some brisk fighting, but the enterprise was happy. We were now able to construct a line of defence. Admittedly our position was still dangerous, but it seemed to me that it would require a frontal attack to dislodge us, and I did not believe the Egyptians capable of that.