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A Friend of Caesar by William Stearns Davis

W >> William Stearns Davis >> A Friend of Caesar




"And I protest against this boisterous and unlawful interruption,"
retorted the consul, fiercely. "Rise, Metellus Scipio!"

Antonius flushed with rage, but sank into his seat. Drusus leaned over
his friend's shoulder and whispered "Veto." Antonius shook his head.

"They must speak. We should be foolish to shoot away our best arrow
before the battle had really begun."

Scipio arose. He was not the "chief senator,"[141] usually entitled to
speak first; but everybody knew that his words were the mere
expressions of his son-in-law, the mighty Pompeius. His oratory and
physical presence were wretched, but all the Senate hung upon his
words.

[141] _Princeps senatus_.

"Pompeius did not intend to abandon the Republic, if the Senate would
support him; but let them act with energy, for otherwise in the future
they might need his aid never so much, and yet implore it in vain."

"You want to destroy the Republic!" cried Quintus Cassius, half
leaping from his seat.

"We want to destroy _you_!" retorted Domitius, savagely.

But all men were not so blinded by fury, hate, and greed of power and
revenge. To the dismay of his party Caius Marcellus, the second
consul, counselled a certain kind of moderation. There was no love
lost by the noble "Optimates" upon Pompeius, and Marcellus hinted this
plainly when he said that all Italy must be put under arms, and with
such an army at the disposal of the Senate, it could act as it saw
fit,--to get rid of a troublesome protector, he implied, no less than
an open enemy. And close after him followed Marcus Calidius and Marcus
Rufus, two senators, who had at least the sagacity to perceive that it
would not free the Commonwealth to crush Caesar, by flinging themselves
into the arms of Pompeius. "Let Pompeius go off to his Spanish
province, to which he was accredited proconsul; it was but natural
Caesar should think himself ill treated, seeing that two legions had
been taken from him for Eastern service, and Pompeius was keeping
these very troops close to Rome."

For one moment it seemed to Drusus that wisdom and justice had not
deserted the Senate of his native state. The consuls were divided; two
influential men were counselling moderation. Surely the Senate would
not push to extremities. But he had not reckoned on the spell which
the malevolent spirit of Lentulus had cast over the assembly. In
bitter words the presiding consul refused to put Calidius's proposal
to a vote, and then, turning directly upon his colleague before the
face of the whole multitude, he poured out reproof and vituperation.
Marcellus turned red and then black in the face with rage. Drusus's
heart was beating rapidly with hope. So long as the consuls were at
enmity, little would be done! Suddenly Scipio started as if to leave
the assembly. "He's going to call in Pompeius's cohorts!" belched
Lentulus. Marcellus turned pale. Drusus saw Calidius's friends
whispering with him, evidently warning and remonstrating. Senators
cast uneasy glances toward the doorways, as if expecting to see a
century of legionaries march in to enforce the decrees of Pompeius's
spokesmen. Marcellus staggered to his feet. He was cowed, and
evidently felt himself in personal danger.

"Conscript Fathers," he stammered, "I--I withdraw my motion to delay
action for considering the recall of Caesar."

"You have done well!" shouted Lentulus, triumphing savagely. Scipio
ostentatiously settled back on his seat, while Cato called with
warning, yet exultation:--

"Take care what you do. Caesar is the only sober man among all those
engaged in the plot to overturn the government. Remember with whom you
must deal, and act!"

Then Scipio arose once more. Every one knew that his fiat was law.
"Conscript Fathers," he began, "Marcus Cato speaks well. Consider the
power of Caesar. He has trained up bands of gladiators whom his
friends, both senators and knights, are drilling for him. He is
doubling his soldiers' pay, giving them extra corn, slaves,
attendants, and land grants. A great part of the Senate,--yes, Cicero
even, they say,--owes him money, at low and favourable rates of
interest; he has actually made presents to freedmen and influential
slaves. All young prodigals in debt are in his pay. He has made
presents to win the favour of cities and princes, or been lending them
troops without vote of the Senate. In Italy, Gaul, and Spain,--yes, in
Greece, too, and Asia, he is winning the good-will of communities by
erecting splendid public buildings. So great is his present power!
What he will do in a second consulship I dare not say. I dare not
assign bounds to his ambition. Conscript Fathers, shall we vote
ourselves freemen or slaves? What more can I add to the words of the
consul? I vote to ratify the proposition of Lucius Lentulus, that
Caesar either disband his army on a fixed day, or be declared a public
enemy!"

"And what is your opinion, Lucius Domitius?" demanded Lentulus, while
never a voice was raised to oppose Scipio.

"Let the Senate remember," replied Domitius, "that Caesar will justify
the meaning of his name--the 'hard-hitter,' and let us strike the
first and telling blow."

A ripple of applause swept down the Senate. The anti-Caesarians had
completely recovered from their first discomfiture, and were carrying
all sentiment before them. Already there were cries of "A vote! a
vote! Divide the Senate! A vote!"

"Conscript Fathers," said Lentulus, "in days of great emergency like
this, when your minds seem so happily united in favour of doing that
which is for the manifest safety of the Republic, I will not ask for
the opinions of each senator in turn. Let the Senate divide; let all
who favour the recall of the proconsul of the Gauls pass to the right,
those against to the left. And so may it be well and prosperous for
the Commonwealth."

But Antonius was again on his feet; and at his side stood Quintus
Cassius.

"Lucius Lentulus," he thundered, "I forbid the division. _Veto!_"

"_Veto!_" shouted Cassius.

Domitius, too, had risen. "Conscript Fathers, let the consuls
remonstrate with the tribunes to withdraw their prohibition. And, if
they do not succeed, let them lay before the Senate that order which
is the safeguard of the Republic."

Everybody knew what Domitius meant. If Antonius would not give way,
martial law was to be declared. Hot and furious raged the debate. More
and more passionate the expressions of party hatred. More and more
menacing the gestures directed upon the two Caesarian tribunes. But
even the impetuous fierceness of Lentulus, Cato, Scipio, and Domitius
combined could not drive the browbeaten Senate to cast loose from its
last mooring that night. Domitius's measure went over. It was
late--the stars were shining outside. Lamps had been brought in, and
threw their ruddy glare over the long tiers of seats and their august
occupants. Finally the angry debate ended, because it was a physical
impossibility to continue longer. Senators went away with dark frowns
or care-knit foreheads. Out in the Forum bands of young "Optimates"
were shouting for Pompeius, and cursing Caesar and his followers.
Drusus, following Antonius, felt that he was the adherent of a lost
cause, the member of a routed army that was defending its last
stronghold, which overwhelming numbers must take, be the defence never
so valiant. And when very late he lay down on his bed that night, the
howls of the fashionable mob were still ringing in his ears.


II

That night the most old-fashioned and sober Roman went to bed at an
advanced hour. Men were gathered in little knots along the streets, in
the forums, in the porticos and basilicas, arguing, gesticulating,
wrangling. Military tribunes and centurions in armour of Pompeius's
legions were parading on the _comitium_.[142] Veterans of that leader
were jostling about in the crowd, clanking their newly furbished
armour and shouting for their old general. If a man spoke for Caesar, a
crowd of bystanders was ready to hoot him down. Staid householders
locked up their dwellings and stationed trusty slaves at the doors to
see that the crowds did not take to riot and pillage. The sailors from
the wharves had been drinking heavily in all the taverns, and now
roved up and down the crowded streets, seeking opportunity for brawls.
Thieves and cutpurses were plying their most successful work; but no
officials had time to direct the efforts of the harassed and slender
police corps. To Pompeius's palace, without the gates, every man whose
voice or vote seemed worth the winning had been summoned. All the
senators had streamed out thither; and there the Magnus had brought
them under the spell of his martial authority and made them as wax in
his hand. And all "that majesty that doth hedge about a king," or
about a victorious general, exerted its full influence. The senators
came into the palace of Pompeius as into the palace of their despot.
He stood before them in his largest hall, wearing the embroidered robe
of a triumphator, with the laurel crown of his victories upon his
head. At his right hand, as first vizir of his state, stood Lentulus
Crus; at his left Lucius Domitius. The senators came to him and bowed
low, and said their "_Aves_" and "_Salves_" as though cringing before
a Mithridates or Tigranes of the East; and Pompeius, by the cordiality
or coolness of his response, indicated which of his vassals had or had
not fallen under his disfavour.

[142] Assembly-place in the _Forum Romanum_.

Yes, despotism had come at last for Rome. The oligarchy had by its
corrupt incapacity made a tyranny inevitable. They could make choice
of masters, but a master they must have. Many were the proud Fabii,
Claudii, and Valerii present that night--men whose lines of curule
ancestors were as long as the duration of the Republic--who ground
their teeth with shame and inward rage the very moment they cried,
"_Salve, Magne!_" Yet the recipient of all this adulation was in no
enviable frame of mind. He looked harassed and weary, despite the
splendour of his dress and crown. And many were the whispered
conversations that passed between him and his ministers, or rather
custodians, Lentulus and Domitius.

"Ah! poor Julia," sighed Pompeius, whose mind ever reverted to his
dead wife, "what misery would have been yours if you had seen this
day. Poor Julia; how I loved her; and Caesar, her father, loved her
too; and now--"

"Be yourself, Magnus," expostulated the consul at his side; "remember
that for the good of the Republic every personal affection is to be
put away. Recall Brutus, who put his own sons to death because they
committed treason. Remember what Scipio AEmilianus said when he learned
that Tiberius Gracchus, his dear brother-in-law, had been put to death
for sedition. He quoted Homer's line:--

"'So perish all who do the like again!'"

"And must I trample down every tie, every affection?" complained
wretched Pompeius, who never ceased hoping against hope that something
would avert the catastrophe.

"There is no tie, no affection, Magnus," said Domitius, sternly, "that
binds you to Caesar. Cast his friendship from your breast as you would
a viper. Think only of being justly hailed with Romulus, Camillus, and
Marius as the fourth founder of Rome. Strike, and win immortal glory."

And so to the last hour these confederates wrought upon their supple
instrument, and bent him to their will; and their tool in turn had all
else at his mercy. Pompeius addressed the senators, and, well trained
by his guardians, spoke with brutal frankness to those who had dared
to advise moderation.

"You, Rufus," he said, pointing a menacing finger, before which that
senator cowered in dread, "have been advising the Republic to tolerate
the chief of its enemies. You bid me to disarm or withdraw from Italy,
as though the lives and property of any good men would be safe the
moment Caesar was left unopposed to pour his cohorts of barbarous Gauls
and Germans into the country. You, Calidius, have given the same
untimely advice. Beware lest you repent the hour when you counselled
that I should disarm or quit the neighbourhood of Rome." The two-edged
suggestion contained in this last warning was too marked for the
reproved men not to turn pale with dread, and slink away trembling
behind their associates.

"But," continued Pompeius, "I have praise as well as blame; Marcus
Cato has not deserted the Republic. He has advised, and advised well,
that the proconsul of the Gauls be stripped of his legions." It was
Cato's turn now to bite his lips with mortification, for in times past
he had foretold that through Pompeius great miseries would come to the
state, and in his praetorship had declared that Pompeius ought to go to
his province, and not stay at home to stir up tumults and anarchy from
which he could emerge as monarch. And such praise from the Magnus's
lips, under the present circumstances, was gall and wormwood to his
haughty soul.

"And," continued Pompeius, "I shall not forget to applaud the
energetic counsels of Domitius and Lentulus Crus. Let those who wish
to preserve life and property," he added, with a menacing
significance, "see to it that they do as these gentlemen advise."

And thereupon there was a great shout of applause from all the more
rabid senators, in which the rest thought it safer to join, with
simulated heartiness. But Pompeius did not stop here. He brought
before the senators tribunes from the two legions taken from Caesar,
and these tribunes loudly declaimed--having learned their lesson
well--that their troops were ill-affected toward their former
commander, and would follow Pompeius to the last. And the Magnus
produced veteran officers of his old campaigns, whom hope of reward
and promotion had induced to come and declare for their former
commander. Late, very late, the informal session of the Senate broke
up. The "Fathers of the Republic" went each man to his own dwelling;
but there was no longer any doubt as to what was to come of the doings
of the day.

Flaccus, the banker, had of course no access to the conference; but he
had waited outside the gate of the palace, to learn the issue from an
acquaintance in the Senate. His patience was at last rewarded.

"Tell me, friend," was his question, "what will be the outcome of
this; shall I risk any loans to-morrow?"

The friendly senator seemed doubtful.

"Caesar is a ruined man. Who imagines his legions will fight? We know
Labienus is with Pompeius."

"You are wrong," said Flaccus.

"Wrong? I?" replied the senator. "I know whereof I speak."

"_Phy!"_ cried the banker, "not Caesar, but you are ruined. The legions
will fight."

"Don't prophesy," sneered the acquaintance, "seeing that you brokers
always keep out of politics."

"You politicians are blind," retorted Flaccus.

* * * * *

The debate raged on. But by law the Senate could not convene on the
third and fourth of the month, and the question of setting aside the
tribunician veto went over until the fifth. It was the last lull
before the outbreak of the great tempest. The little group of
Caesarians put forth their final efforts. Drusus went in person to call
on Cicero, the great orator, and plead with him to come out from his
residence in the suburbs and argue for peace. The destroyer of
Catilina had declared that he would not forfeit his rights to a
triumph for his Cilician victories by appearing prematurely in the
Senate. Besides, he could never antagonize Pompeius. Curio smiled
grimly when his colleague reported his fruitless embassy.

"I think, my friends," said the politician, "we shall soon prove the
old saying, 'Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.'"




Chapter XV

The Seventh of January


I

The rapid march of events that week had taken Drusus out of himself,
and made him forgetful of personal consequences; but it sobered him
when he heard Curio and Caelius, his associates, telling Balbus where
their wills would be found deposited if anything calamitous were to
befall them. After all, life was very sweet to the young Livian. He
could not at heart desire to drift off into nothingness--to stop
breathing, thinking, feeling. And for the last time he reviewed his
position; told himself that it was not an unworthy cause for which he
was contending; that it was not treason, but patriotism, to wish to
overthrow the great oligarchy of noble families, who by their
federated influence had pulled the wires to every electoral assembly,
so that hardly a man not of their own coterie had been elected to high
office for many a long year; while the officials themselves had grown
full and wanton on the revenues wrung from the score of unfortunate
provinces.

The feeling against the Caesarians was very bitter in the city. Caesar
had always been the friend and darling of the populace; but, now that
his star seemed setting, hardly a voice was raised, save to cry up the
patriotism and determination of the consuls and Pompeius Magnus.
Soldiers of the latter's legions were everywhere. The Senate was to
convene the afternoon of the seventh, in the Curia of Pompeius, in the
Campus Martius. Lentulus Crus was dragging forth every obscure
senator, every retired politician, whose feet almost touched the
grave, to swell his majority. All knew that the tribunes' vetoes were
to be set aside, and arbitrary power decreed to the consuls. Drusus
began to realize that the personal peril was pressing.

"Won't his head look pretty for the crows to pick at?" commented
Marcus Laeca to a friend, as the two swept past Drusus on the street.
The Livian heard the loudly muttered words and trembled. It was easy
to laud the Decii who calmly sacrificed their lives for the Republic,
and many another martyr to patriotism; it was quite another thing to
feel the mortal fear of death coursing in one's veins, to reflect that
soon perhaps the dogs might be tearing this body which guarded that
strange thing one calls self; to reflect that all which soon will be
left of one is a bleaching skull, fixed high in some public place, at
which the heartless mob would point and gibber, saying, "That is the
head of Quintus Livius Drusus, the rebel!"

Drusus wandered on--on to the only place in Rome where he could gain
the moral courage to carry him undaunted through that which was before
him--to the Atrium of Vesta. He entered the house of the Vestals and
sent for his aunt. Fabia came quickly enough, for her heart had been
with her nephew all these days that tried men's souls. The noble woman
put her arms around the youth--for he was still hardly more--and
pressed him to her breast.

"Aunt Fabia," said Drusus, growing very weak and pale, now that he
felt her warm, loving caress, "do you know that in two or three days
you will have as nephew a proscribed insurgent, perhaps with a price
on his head, who perhaps is speedily to die by the executioner, like
the most ignoble felon?"

"Yes," said Fabia, also very pale, yet smiling with a sweet, grave
smile--the smile of a goddess who grieves at the miseries of mortal
men, yet with divine omniscience glances beyond, and sees the
happiness evolved from pain. "Yes, I have heard of all that is passing
in the Senate. And I know, too, that my Quintus will prove himself a
Fabian and a Livian, to whom the right cause and the good of the
Republic are all--and the fear of shame and death is nothing." And
then she sat down with him upon a couch, and took his head in her lap,
and stroked him as if she were his mother. "Ah! my Quintus," she said,
"you are still very young, and it is easy for one like you to enlist
with all your ardour in a cause that seems righteous; yes, and in the
heat of the moment to make any sacrifice for it; but it is not so easy
for you or any other man calmly to face shame and annihilation, when
the actual shadow of danger can be seen creeping up hour by hour. I
know that neither you nor many another man wise and good believes that
there are any gods. And I--I am only a silly old woman, with little or
no wisdom and wit--"

"Not silly and not old, carissima!" interrupted Drusus, smiling at her
self-depreciation.

"We won't argue," said Fabia, in a bit lighter vein. "But--as I would
say--I believe in gods, and that they order all things well."

"Why, then," protested the young man, "do we suffer wrong or grief? If
gods there are, they are indifferent; or, far worse, malevolent, who
love to work us woe."

Again Fabia shook her head.

"If we were gods," said she, "we would all be wise, and could see the
good to come out of every seeming evil. There! I am, as I said, silly
and old, and little enough comfort can words of mine bring a bright
young man whose head is crammed with all the learned lore of the
schools of Athens. But know this, Quintus, so long as I live, you
shall live in my heart--living or dead though you be. And believe me,
the pleasure of life is but a very little thing; it is sweet, but how
quickly it passes! And the curses or praises of men--these, too, only
a few mouldy rolls of books keep for decay! What profits it to
Miltiades this hour, that a few marks on a papyrus sheet ascribe to
him renown; or how much is the joy of Sextus Tarquinius darkened
because a group of other marks cast reproach upon his name? If so be
death is a sleep, how much better to feel at the end, 'I die, but I
die self-approved, and justified by self!' And if death is not all a
sleep; if, as Socrates tells us, there are hopes that we but pass from
a base life to another with less of dross, then how do pleasures and
glories, griefs and dishonours, of this present life touch upon a man
whose happiness or woe will be found all within?"

And so the good woman talked, giving to Drusus her own pure faith and
hope and courage; and when the intellectual philosopher within him
revolted at some of her simple premises and guileless sophistries,
against his will he was persuaded by them, and was fain to own to
himself that the heart of a good woman is past finding out; that its
impulses are more genuine, its intuitions truer, its promptings surer,
than all the fine-spun intellectuality of the most subtle
metaphysician. When at last Drusus rose to leave his aunt, his face
was glowing with a healthy colour, his step was elastic, his voice
resonant with a noble courage. Fabia embraced him again and again.
"Remember, whatever befalls," were her parting words, "I shall still
love you." And when Drusus went out of the house he saw the dignified
figure of the Vestal gazing after him. A few minutes later he passed
no less a personage than the consular Lucius Domitius on his way to
some political conference. He did not know what that dignitary
muttered as he swept past in spotless toga, but the gloomy ferocity of
his brow needed no interpreter. Drusus, however, never for a moment
gave himself disquietude. He was fortified for the best and the worst,
not by any dumb resignation, not by any cant of philosophy, but by an
inward monitor which told him that some power in some way would lead
him forth out of all dangers in a manner whereof man could neither ask
nor think.

* * * * *

On the sixth of January the debate, as already said, drew toward its
end. All measures of conciliation had been voted down; the crisis was
close at hand. On the seventh, after his interview with Fabia, Drusus
went back to his own lodgings, made a few revisions in his will, and
in the presence of two or three friends declared Cappadox
manumitted,[143] lest he, by some chance, fall into the clutches of a
brutal master. The young man next wrote a long letter to Cornelia for
Agias to forward to Baiae, and put in it such hope as he could glean
from the dark words of the philosophers; that even if destruction now
overtook him, death perhaps did not end all; that perhaps they would
meet beyond the grave. Then he took leave of his weeping freedmen and
slaves, and strolled out into the city, and wandered about the Forum
and the Sacred Way, to enjoy, perchance, a last view of the sites that
were to the Roman so dear. Then finally he turned toward the Campus
Martius, and was strolling down under the long marble-paved colonnade
of the Portico of Pompeius. Lost in a deep reverie, he was forgetful
of all present events, until he was roused by a quick twitch at the
elbow; he looked around and found Agias before him.

[143] _Manumissio inter amicos_ was less formal than the regular
ceremony before the praetor.

"_A!_ domine," cried the young Greek, "I have friends in the house of
Lentulus. I have just been told by them that the consul has sworn that
he will begin to play Sulla this very day. Neither you, nor Antonius,
Cassius, Curio, nor the other supporters of Caesar will be alive
to-night. Do not go into the Curia. Get away, quickly! Warn your
friends, and leave Rome, or to-night you will all be strangled in the
Tullianum!"

The Tullianum! Drusus knew no other term to conjure up a like abode of
horrors--the ancient prison of the city, a mere chamber sunk in the
ground, and beneath that a dungeon, accessible only by an opening in
the floor above--where the luckless Jugurtha had perished of cold and
starvation, and where Lentulus Sura, Cethegus, and the other
lieutenants of Catilina had been garroted, in defiance of all their
legal rights, by the arbitrary decree of a rancorous Senate! So at
last the danger had come! Drusus felt himself quiver at every fibre.
He endured a sensation the like of which he had never felt before--one
of utter moral faintness. But he steadied himself quickly. Shame at
his own recurring cowardice overmastered him. "I am an unworthy
Livian, indeed," he muttered, not perhaps realizing that it is far
more heroic consciously to confront and receive the full terrors of a
peril, and put them by, than to have them harmlessly roll off on some
self-acting mental armour.

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