Fic: Simulacra (Rome), 4/10
[Sorry to anyone whose flist I'm on for spamming you with seven updates in quick succession]
Title: Simulacra (4/10)
Fandom: Rome (HBO)
Rating: R
Notes/disclaimer: HERE.
A/N: I have to apologise for the delay in completing and posting the rest of this story. Life has thrown some unhappy curve-balls my way over the past few months, and I’ve not been able to find the time and the motivation (or at least, not both at the same time) to get any significant work done. So, the rest of this story is finally finished, and is dedicated to my dear recently-departed Dad, who saw in my interest in archaeology and ancient history a perfect opportunity to beat me at my own game, and over the past few years managed to build up a terrifying collection of books on all aspects of Roman history. I think if he knew I’d written 40,000 words of a love story about Cicero, Brutus and Cassius, he’d be utterly bemused, but also hopefully a little bit pleased that I’m this nuts about something so close to his heart. So, this one’s for you, Dad (though, if you’re looking down on this and reading over my shoulder: for the love of god, skip the bits with the mansex, kthx).
Special mention also goes to lord_jagged, among whose Christmas presents to me this year were ridiculously amazing copies of Cicero’s letters and the oration against Cataline (for those poor souls who might be interested, they’re the Public Domain reprints of Shuckburgh’s Letters and MacLardy’s Cataline, so they’re full of ridiculous turn-of-the-century academic footnotes. The Cataline comes with literal and fluent translations and every single word is parsed in the footnotes, so it’s a fantastic book if you’re learning or trying to keep up your Latin). I’m incredibly lucky to have a boyfriend who indulges my insane passion for this sort of thing, though I think you probably ought to feel a little bit sorry for him, because now he’s never going to hear the end of my love of all things Roman.
Chapter 3
Alea Iacta Est
Quod est, eo decet uti; et quicquid agas, agere pro viribus. - What one has, one ought to use; and whatever one does one should do with all one’s might.
Cicero, De Senectute IX
a.d. vii Kal. Feb. 44
"I need someone I can trust."
They were Caesar’s words, and corrupted by wine and disappointment they began to sound like weapons shaped deliberately to wound. Brutus realised to his dismay that his mother had been vindicated; it seemed that to have humbled himself all those years ago in Greece had been needlessly humiliating. He wished he had fallen on his sword after Pharsalus and saved himself these years of betraying his principles for fear of losing Caesar’s hard-won trust - trust which, it seemed, had never been his to lose in the first place.
After the disastrous end to the evening’s meeting he had quarrelled with his lictors and stumbled home distressed and alone, through streets so empty it hinted at the unrest growing amongst the street gangs of the Subura, protection racketeers and market tradesmen made nervous and forced from the streets into the back rooms of taverns. He took a meandering route through old-money mansions along the Via Sacra and arrived home in the middle of the night, where he refused the slave’s offer of wine or water and strode to the tablinium with the intention of locking himself away until the morning.
“Admit no one,” he instructed the boy who hurried to precede him and began lighting lamps. “If my mother asks, I am not at home.”
The boy nodded and gratefully withdrew, and Brutus sank heavily into his father’s chair behind the desk. For a few brief moments he rested his head in his hands and wondered what his ancestors would make of him, and whether they would censure him for his loyalty to Caesar. Loyalty was just as admirable a virtue in a man as love of the republic - perhaps the aberration was to follow either course blindly, something of which he and Cassius were equally guilty.
He took a sheaf of papyrus from the desk. It was smooth and warm, the heavy kind which the historians favoured because it sat happily upon shelves and seemed keen to last into posterity. Bowing his head, he began to write a letter to Cicero, whose counsel he craved but could not risk seeking.
Brutus Cicero SD.
Cicero, it troubles me that lately we have not been such friends as we once were. You have done well to withdraw yourself from business in the senate, and I have been foolish to place my trust in Caesar. To my detriment, at Pharsalus I followed the path you suggested and I find now that I have great cause to regret it. My name, I am told, forbids me to suffer a tyrant, and Caesar has this evening proven himself unworthy of the loyalty which I have shown him in the past. You know what must come next; it is the burden of my ancestry to stand in opposition to tyranny and, having already abandoned my principles, I find that my name is all I have left to uphold.
You once warned me of Cassius’ fervour for the republic and I reminded you that that, in itself, was not a crime. He and I are brothers, and closer even, and I give him absolute trust in the conviction of his actions on the strength of that and of our many years of friendship. After the deed is done, I will not make any claim to authority. My actions will be carried out in the name of the Senate, and you must bring the state to order and steer it safely until it is fit to govern itself. Ever since the Gracchi we have suffered greatly through the rise of popular men; the letter of the law must no longer be permissive to corruption, and I trust you with the task of bringing about its emancipation from the yoke of bribery and greed.
I ask your forgiveness for my decision not to enlist your help with the former part of my undertaking. It is no duty for you - truth ought to be a virtuous supplicant in the temple, not a bloodied wolf growling at its door. Besides which, you value your moderate position, and that is something which I find myself loathe to compromise.
You once offered me the use of your farm in the country in contemplation of our flight from Pompey’s camp, and I find myself wondering now whether, in flight from Rome, you might permit me belatedly to accept. I am tired of the city and of politics and even of my duty to the republic. I should very much like to spend the rest of my days occupied by the farming of peaches, if such a thing were possible. I write in the very absence of hope.
After writing the closing paragraph he struck through everything which preceded it and sank his head into his hands once more, remaining there until morning, when he fed the papyrus into the fire and went to find his mother.
*
It was difficult not to feel aggrieved that the conspiracy to carry out Caesar’s assassination had already been almost entirely decided upon, and required his input only insofar as requiring the legitimacy afforded to it by the addition of his name. He took part in what followed, but balked at the apparent glee with which the deed itself was discussed - Quintus in particular seemed to delight in thinking up horrific ways in which it might be enacted, and took pleasure in Brutus’ pale-faced disgust at his bloodthirstiness. As always, Servilia circled the room like a warship before a battle, and was the only one who could lay a hand on Quintus’ shoulder to calm him. Often she let him talk, apparently willing to indulge his gruesome fantasies, like a mother amused by the precociousness of a child.
At a tense gathering one damp, blustery afternoon, talk turned to those it would be prudent to recruit, to promote the conspiracy in the senate in the aftermath of the deed, and to bolster numbers in the act itself. Brutus had listened to many of the suggestions with distant equanimity, but when Cimber spoke up with a sudden, shrewd expression on his long face, he realised he would not be able to remain silent for long.
“We’ve not yet talked about Cicero. Recruit Cicero, and it’s as good as a senatorial decree - ”
Brutus looked at him sharply. “No. Cicero is not to be involved.”
Cassius threw him a glance, a look of surprised calculation, but Casca pre-empted any comment by clambering to his feet and voicing his opinion.
“Why not? He’s the best proponent we could have, the pedarii would support us without question at Cicero’s behest.”
Brutus had anticipated this argument, and came prepared to answer it. “Cicero’s influence is not what it was. His appeal is that he occupies the centre ground and that, whichever way he leans, the senate leans with him. If he takes an active role in Caesar’s death it will seem that we have bought him, and that will lose him the Senate.”
“Yes,” Decimus spoke up, nodding thoughtfully. “Cicero would be much more useful if he could take up our cause with the pedarii afterwards - we should keep him in the dark for now.”
“Cicero would follow us into Hades after the fact, if he thought that we were on the winning side,” Cassius murmured with a cruel twist of his lips. Casca and the others nodded, smiling, and Brutus was struck by the thought that the group of them, perched there on the edge of their lecti, were vultures anticipating the death of a lion.
“Cicero is to be kept ignorant of our plans,” he reiterated, carefully, eyes on Cassius to make sure he had been understood. Cassius gave a barely perceptible nod of his head.
At that moment there came the secret knock, tapped out on the wall beside the entrance to the triclinium. The conspirators eyed each other nervously, and Servilia herself strode to open the door. Eleni slipped into the room bearing a letter, which she held out to Brutus.
“A letter from Titus Pomponius Atticus, dominus.”
Servilia made as though to intercept the note, but Brutus was swifter, plucking it from Eleni’s hands with a reproachful frown. Mindful of the silence that had fallen, he unrolled the letter and read swiftly, turning his back to mask his mounting dismay as it became increasingly obvious that the cost of his participation in the conspiracy would be unbearably high.
My dear Brutus,
Allow me the pleasure of your company for this evening’s dinner, and I swear I’ll not see you disappointed. Cicero will join us as, I hope, will a number of our other friends. It will be an imperfect number for a correct and proper dinner party, but the quality of the company will more than make up for its paucity. What a pleasant occasion it will be for us to become reacquainted after my sojourn in Buthrotum. Cicero also permits me to add that it has been far too long since he last saw you, and he awaits your attendance with utmost anticipation!
Atticus.
He swallowed around the galling knowledge that the days of pleasant dinners and idle conversation were now over. The thought of implicating Cicero, or indeed Atticus, in the business of conspiracy, whether by word, deed, or association, was unconscionable.
“Is the boy waiting?” he asked.
Eleni nodded, and Brutus excused himself, aware of his mother and Cassius exchanging glances behind his back, to compose a note expressing his regret that he would be unable to attend.
*
Later that evening, Cicero and Atticus sat alone in Atticus’ triclinium, eating and drinking far more than was sensible, and feeling rather depressed by the lack of entertaining conversation.
“What a sad day it is,” Cicero murmured grimly, “when old men cannot summon company for an impromptu party.”
Atticus concurred. It had been many months since a full complement of guests had occupied the couches in his refurbished triclinium, and he had hoped his return to Rome would have provided adequate motive for at least a handful of his closest friends to visit.
“I wonder about Brutus’ absence,” he said. “He’s usually so keen to spend an evening here. Perhaps I flatter myself, but I had considered we unhappy pair to be two of his more preferred companions.”
Cicero sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I fear, in that case, that we may have been usurped in Brutus’ affections.”
“Oh?”
“You must have heard about Cassius’ return from Syria.”
Atticus shrugged. “I’m ashamed to say I’ve been ensconced in my library for rather too long.”
Cicero fixed him with a wry look. “You must be the only man in Rome not aware of it. Antony’s all but spitting blood, and no doubt persuading Caesar to have the fool run through the moment he sets foot in the senate.”
“After all the business with the Pontians, I should think Cassius would do himself more favours by staying safely in the East.”
“That was years ago, and forgotten - nominally, at least - by Caesar. In any case, I’ve no doubt his appearance at Servilia’s is the reason for Brutus’ absence. His influence on Brutus has always been profound. They were close as boys - I don’t think you knew the family then - and always to be found together, before Cassius’ marriage to Servilia’s youngest girl.”
Cicero gave an affected toss of his head as he concluded this little story - the same gesture he made in the senate in an attempt to feign indifference - and drank uncharacteristically deeply from his wine cup.
Atticus privately worried about his friend’s fondness for Brutus. Since the ignominy of the return from Pharsalus and the induction of Brutus to their social circle, he had often noted the softness around Cicero’s eyes when he smiled at things which Brutus had said, and noted the eagerness to please which crept into Cicero’s voice as he recounted anecdotes and performed like a peacock for Brutus’ approval. Now he observed his friend’s downturned mouth and hoped Cassius’ stay in Rome would prove to be fleeting, and that Brutus’ absence would not be cause for the onset of a protracted bout of self-destructive depression on Cicero’s part.
“Come, now,” he said. “Enough of this misery. Let us turn to this matter of Vetullius and his treatise on Plato. He can’t mean to publish, can he, except in certain anticipation of being roundly mocked?”
Cicero smiled at him, feeling melancholic and not at all in the mood for critical discussion. “You know far too well how to distract me, Atticus. I suppose I ought to thank you.”
“Nonsense. It’s as much for my own good as for yours; you’re so terribly boring in the depths of this sort of despondency. Now, the Platonica, I demand an honest opinion.”
*
a.d. ix Id. Mart. 44
It was the day of Caesar’s great induction of one hundred new senators, bearded and moustachioed barbarians from Cisalpine Gaul and plebeians from the streets of the Subura. The conspirators, united in their abhorrence of the very idea of raising such men to senatorial rank, stood together in the gallery, observing the proceedings.
“I swear I saw that one selling fish in the forum,” Cimber muttered bitterly as they looked down upon Caesar’s men, entering the Curia for the first time and gazing about with identical, comical expressions of wonder.
“At least he’s Roman,” Cassius pointed out. “A good Roman fishmonger is a fine nobleman compared to some of these Belgians and Celts who call themselves ‘chiefs’.”
“There’s one over there with an earring.”
They fell into sullen silence and watched Caesar enter with the ubiquitous Lucius Vorenus dogging his steps like a loyal pet lion.
“It’s the end, eh?”
Cicero joined them in the gallery and leant beside Brutus, close enough that Brutus could feel the warmth of him, and caught the scent of silphium and honey, which told him Cicero must have recently been suffering from a sore throat. He contained himself and barely glanced to his left, noting with depressed resignation Cicero’s pointed indifference to his presence.
“The Gauls have invaded! But don’t be so glum; they will return to their ghastly mountain hovels soon enough. Caesar will only summon them back when he needs their support for some fresh outrage.”
Brutus had done his best to distance himself from Cicero - if he could not share confidences with him anymore, and it was dangerous to seek out his company, it was best the thing were done properly. It was as his mother had instructed him; he had hardened his heart. And it was also as Cassius wanted it, which rankled, somehow. Having Cicero hovering at the periphery of their group was awkward and unwelcome. Brutus felt guilty enough as it was for having so shamelessly abandoned a friend, and needed no reminder of Cassius’ disdain for what his fellow conspirators perceived as cowardice and what Brutus was increasingly beginning to understand to be Cicero’s good sense and prudence.
“The great man shadowing Caesar is the famous Lucius Vorenus, one assumes,” he said, watching the pair of them make their rounds amongst the old senators, Caesar’s smiles and handshakes doing little to reassure those who felt bewildered by the appearance of so many barbarians in their midst.
“Indeed.”
“Affectionate, aren’t they,” Cassius said, with a glance at Brutus. “Might be father and son.”
Brutus said nothing. There was no need for such a pointed and deliberately painful observation; his conviction was firm, without the need for Cassius to rub salt into the wound left by Caesar’s recent mistrust.
“Caesar would have the humble people think so,” Cicero agreed, meanwhile. “He keeps the wretched man by his side constantly.”
“This beast of the field is a senator of Rome!”
“Do not fret so, Casca,” Cicero soothed. “We timid subjects of King Caesar must learn to be tolerant.”
Cassius and Cimber shifted impatiently and Brutus wished fervently that Cicero would take his leave before any imprudent words could be exchanged.
“I believe I shall go home and stupefy myself with wine,” the older man announced, thankfully. “Good day to you all.”
He glanced at Brutus as he was leaving, a regretful, admonishing look which Brutus detested even as he stamped down his desire to follow after him and spend the afternoon in pleasant insobriety.
“Old fool,” murmured Cassius, casting another tactless glance in Brutus’ direction.
Brutus failed to speak up in Cicero’s defence and the taste left by this minor betrayal was bitter; it remained so when he raised his hand in greeting to Caesar, who was looking up at them from the Senate floor and smiling.
*
Id. Mart. 44
Cicero woke early, as was usual, and went into the garden to eat a meagre breakfast, just as a pale and sickly sun was rising over the Esquiline. Tiro brought the morning’s letters, which consisted mostly of pleas for assistance in rural property disputes he had no interest in undertaking, and invitations to dinners he had no intention of attending. Tiro then handed him a list of the clients already queuing by the front door. In years past, it had always been Cicero’s policy to receive clients as early in the morning as possible, but of late he had grown tired of their wrangling and their squabbling. It was hard to escape the niggling awareness that their eagerness to receive his patronage only made a mockery of his inexorably dwindling influence. He longed, sometimes, to order them all to be driven into the street and henceforth have a notice pinned to the door: Marcus Tullius Cicero is no longer at home to hangers-on, for the little good it may have done you.
He decided instead to begin the journey to the Campus Martius a little earlier than usual, so that it could be made at leisure. Cicero had grumbled often that Caesar’s rebuilding of the curia - the Curia Julia, as the people had started to call it - was of no greater inconvenience than when one considered that the walk from his house to the Campus Martius was that bit more ardous than that to the Forum, and today he took up a similar refrain. The matters up for debate in that day’s senate were unlikely to amount to anything particularly interesting, and Cicero did not anticipate having to contribute anything more than a few words of generic approbation, and so had no need to prepare a speech. The walk through the city was pleasant, the sun warm though weak, and he dictated a brief letter to his brother Quintus, which Tiro took down on wax and would later send with the next dispatch to the farm in Tusculum.
They arrived at Pompey’s Theatre, whose curia would act as the setting for the senate meeting, with little time to spare before the opening of the session. By the time he and Tiro reached the Porticus Pompei at the entrance to the Theatre’s garden, he was happy indeed to hurry towards his seat with only cursory greetings to Casca and Cimber, and the others of his fellow senators gathered outside.
The curia filled quickly, the general murmur of conversation rising steadily as senators took their places and continued to discuss the business of the day. Cicero had twisted in his seat to invite Sergillus to visit him at home in order to continue an argument about the facility of the right of inheritance between cousins, when he became aware of a sudden spreading hush, and a commotion behind him on the Curia floor.
He looked around and saw with incomprehension that Cimber was tussling with Caesar in the centre of the floor. It was, he assumed, related to the fool’s brother’s continuing exile, and seemed at first to be vaguely embarrassing - Cicero was on the verge of averting his eyes in disgust when Cimber made a grab for Caesar’s toga and pulled it free, falling back to cry “What are you waiting for? Now! Now!”
Cicero watched, aghast, as Casca sprang forward and Caesar closed his hand around the blade of a short dagger, the kind it was fashionable these days to carry if one was young, rich and foolish. The first blood spilled onto Caesar’s tunic even as the next man, Cassius, stepped forward and slashed at Caesar’s face, followed by another, who plunged the knife into his back.
As Caesar reeled and fought against his assailants, the rest of the senate rose to its feet, a great susurrating babble of panic swelling to drown out the cries of Caesar’s attackers. Cicero rose with them, struggling to gain a better view of the commotion, mind whirring furiously to think of the right course of action.
As each man took their turn and span away, the pedarii began to scatter. Cicero made a swift search of the downturned faces of the assassins and spotted Brutus standing aghast at the edge of the melee, seemingly struck mute and immobile by the horror of what was unfolding before him on the floor. He looked up and by chance met Cicero’s appalled gaze, and in that moment Cicero intended to call out to him, in order to offer him the chance to abandon madness and come away to safety. He would have done so were it not for the wretched, panicked din and the undercurrent, like a heavy burst of hailstones, of six hundred pairs of sandals dashing for the Forum. He looked back as the tide of his fellow senators began to sweep him away, and wished for a deeply painful moment that he had put a stop to all the business with Cassius when it had begun, and had used what little influence he had had over Brutus to dissuade him from such foolishness. But Marcus Tullius Cicero was a creature of habit, and cowardice is often the most difficult of all the vices to shake. Bowed by regret, he allowed himself to be swept away by the throng, the last glimpse he had of Brutus being of an anguished figure at the edge of a pack of wolves, and of Cassius, hovering behind him, the grim spectre of Brutus’ unfolding destiny, pressing a knife into Brutus’ open hand.
Once forced out into the forum Cicero frowned, wrapped his toga around himself more tightly, and instructed Tiro, running beside him, to go and advise Terentia that it would be prudent to leave the city. Divorced they might be, and disgusted with him she almost certainly still was, but she had been a good wife to him for the greater part of his life and to make certain of her safety was really the very least he could do for her now. He thought of her approval when he had first introduced Brutus as a personal friend, so pleased with him for finally making fortuitous connections. His frown deepened on that unhappy thought, and he fled with the rest of the crowd.
*
Much later that afternoon, when a body was brought into the atrium of the house of the Junii, Brutus schooled himself to avert his eyes from the gaping crimson maw of Quintus’ throat. He thought of Antony’s hands, which had clasped his shoulders as Antony brushed a lingering kiss against his cheek, and those same hands’ cruel grip around Cicero’s wrists a year ago in the senate. He looked down at his own trembling fingers and for a moment thought them still red with Caesar’s blood. His mother looked over the body dispassionately and instructed the slaves to remove it from the house and then throw it in the river. Cassius cast Brutus a baleful look as though to say: ‘You see, the kind of man you have tied us to?’
Cicero, who had sidled around to bask in the conspirators’ imagined glory, looked pale and thoughtful in the wake of Antony’s threats, and took his leave in a hurry for the Argiletum, to continue packing for his sojourn in the country. Brutus was not at all sorry that Quintus was dead.
*
It was now late in the evening - the crowds which had fled at the news of Caesar’s death had been replaced by a violent mob of veterans and opportunists, trouble-makers all. The city rang with the sound of furious disorder. Cicero had decided to make for the house on the Argiletum because he was sure it was safer than risking the journey to the Palatine along the Via Sacra, which had been occupied by the mob.
He was in the midst of instructing the slaves in packing belongings for the journey to the country, when Tiro alerted him to a sudden thumping on the wooden gate which led from the garden into the alleyway beyond. Anticipating the worst, Tiro had ordered the slaves to arm themselves with torches and whatever could be found in the way of weapons.
Cicero thought crossly that he would not be cowed into hiding himself away within his own home, and brushed Tiro aside to join Heracles, the heavy-set kitchen slave, as he led the torch-lit procession through the garden and cautiously opened the gate.
Outside stood two figures, their faces obscured by the cowls of their cloaks.
“Show yourselves,” growled Heracles, thrusting the torch closer to the pair.
The taller of the two cast off his cowl and revealed familiar features, thrown starkly into relief by the shadows cast by Heracles’ torch.
“Brutus!” Cicero exclaimed. “Are you mad? There is a mob outside, intent on your murder!”
“Forgive me, Cicero. Will you let us in?”
Cicero stood aside and allowed Brutus and his companion, whom Cicero recognised as Brutus’ faithful body slave Pandrosius, into the garden, whereupon Heracles quickly shut and barred the door behind them.
“What did you expect to achieve by coming here?” Cicero demanded, ushering Brutus into the house. “I’m powerless to help you; the senate are hardy likely to listen to sense, much less the people. Lepidus has a legion in the Forum - ”
“I’m not about to make you supplicate yourself to him,” Brutus replied quietly. “And I’m well aware this is trouble of my own making, I don’t intend to rely on you to extricate me.”
“Well then, why have you come?” He tried not to meet Brutus’ eyes, because cowardice had served him well thus far, and he did not want to be tempted into reckless bravery. Brutus, for his part, regarded him silently, before raising his hands to his face and letting out a ragged sigh.
“Even after Antony’s visit, my mother’s house is still full of the usual party of glad-handers and leeches, all of them mad with wine and the scent of Caesar’s blood. Cassius and my sister are plotting our next move, and my mother seems determined to ensnare herself another lover to replace the one she’s just lost... You had the decency to leave immediately after Antony, which at the moment makes you the most desirable company.”
Cicero waited a long moment, then strode to Brutus and embraced him, kissing his cheek firmly in a gesture of sympathy and consolation. Coward he may be, but he recognised in Brutus some familiar measure of failing courage and detested it. “It is done now,” he said gently, almost kindly, as though he were speaking to Tullia as a child after she had broken a favourite toy. “For better or for worse, it cannot be undone.”
He called for wine and bread, and led Brutus through the house, into a room which afforded them more privacy, and where Brutus could sink gratefully onto a lectus, toga slipping from one shoulder with its embroidered border hanging creased and stained.
“Is there much trouble on the streets, apart from Anthony’s mob?” Cicero asked after a long silence.
“Some,” Brutus replied. “Not as much as I had expected. Though I hadn’t really thought about the city - I mean, the people - I hadn’t thought they might not welcome what we planned to do…”
“Half the city has retreated behind closed doors and shuttered windows, and the other half rampages here and there making petty trouble under the banner of revolution. Thus has it always been with the mob.”
A slave appeared, bearing bread and wine, figs, and a bowl of sweetened dates, Brutus’ particular favourites. Cicero detected Tiro’s hand in this, and silently gave thanks for his omniscient friend. He took a mouthful of wine, barely watered - Tiro again - and motioned for Brutus to do the same. The younger man did so, but with little enthusiasm, and seemed to balk at the sight of his own hands in front of him as he reached for the bread, even shying away from the dates when they were offered.
Cicero dismissed the slave and settled back against his lectus, finding himself similarly uninterested in the food, but picking at a fig for lack of any other distraction.
“What are your plans, given Antony’s position?” he asked finally, though the undertone was obvious and Brutus took it as a question about his mother and Cassius.
He placed his drained cup on the table before he replied. Cicero reached immediately to refill it. “What can we do, but abide by Antony’s terms?” He gave a low laugh. “My mother would see Atia stripped and flogged before the rostra, and the loss of that opportunity seems to trouble her more than anything else.”
Cicero smiled grimly, “Are we all to be bound by Antony’s desires, and consider ourselves fortunate?”
“I’ll not apologise for conducting this business honourably, Cicero.”
Cicero shook his head, dismissing the argument with a wave of his hand. “As I said, what’s done is done. But you must have a clear aim in mind. What do you intend to do, have you given it any further thought?”
Brutus gave an imperceptible shrug. “Give an honest and honourable speech at Caesar’s funeral, make clear our motivations and rely on the good sense of the people to prevail. And you?”
Cicero made a face suggesting he thought good sense might be in fairly short supply. “I am heading to the country, as I said. Retreat seems the wisest course of action, for the moment.”
“Wisdom seems increasingly to be synonymous with cowardice,” Brutus agreed quietly. It was a token of their friendship, he thought, that Cicero did not bristle under perceived criticism. “When will you be leaving?”
“Soon, I hope. It might seem cowardly but I would urge you to consider doing the same. By absenting ourselves from the city for a month or so, we might hope to draw Antony into damning himself by virtue of his own incompetence. The senate will watch him attempt to rule the city as though she were an errant slave, and they’ll soon be desperate to get rid of him.”
Brutus nodded. “I hope you’ll be proved right, but I’m afraid I cannot leave.”
“Ah. And may I ask why?” The question was phrased in a manner Brutus recognised from many prosecutions, when it was clear that Cicero already knew the answer, and only wished the defendant to damn himself by virtue of his own confession.
“Cassius and I have drawn our lots together,” he admitted, the bitter taste of the words thick on his tongue. “To abandon him now - I cannot. Besides, we have the republic to save.”
This attempt at levity fell rather flat and they sank into contemplative silence as Brutus took a small handful of dates. Cicero watched him eat them, one after the other. He was struck, suddenly, by the realisation that, in the many years that they had been friends, Brutus had never seemed more in need of reassurance. Since the miserable time in Caesar’s camp after the disaster of Pharsalus, Cicero had felt the weight of unspoken responsibility, and gratitude for Brutus’ inarticulated, uncomplicated trust. Now, brought together and held together by the consequences of Caesar’s death, he felt it all the more keenly. Brutus chose another date, and Cicero decided, in honour of a friendship recently in danger of unravelling, to offer him respite from intrigue and deception, for a few hours more at the very least.
“Will you stay longer?” he asked, surprised by his own earnestness. “I guarantee you’ll find no glad-handers here, inebriated or otherwise.”
Brutus looked to be in two minds. He took a swift mouthful of wine and straightened his toga. “I ought to be getting home. My mother will be pouring honey into Cassius’ ear, I’d hate him to give my sister any reason to fly into one of her rages.”
“I’m sure Cassius can look after himself. He has married one Caepio; he’ll have no difficulty fending off another. Come, I’ll have the slaves open a room.”
Brutus hesitated, and for a long moment Cicero thought he might refuse the invitation. His answer seemed incongruously significant, putting Cicero in mind of the portentous dreams by which Caesar’s poor wife Calpurnia was said to lately have been afflicted.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Brutus said, however, settling gratefully back onto the lectus and offering Cicero a weary smile. “Though if anyone should ask, I put up a much better fight before letting myself be persuaded.”
*
a.d. xiv Kal. Apr.
It seemed, after all, that Cicero had been right to be sceptical where the good sense of the Roman people was concerned. Antony’s eulogy to Caesar, as melodramatic a piece of stage-acting as Brutus had ever witnessed, had stirred the crowd into a frenzy, and they had chased Brutus and Cassius, along with Decimus and Casca and a number of the other conspirators, from the Forum to their respective houses, snapping at their heels like a baying pack of hunting dogs. The Lictors were of little help, offering only token resistance before breaking ranks and running for shelter in the Subura. Brutus imagined Antony had laughed heartily, having climbed down from the rostra still clutching Caesar’s bloodied toga, at the thought of his newest, greatest enemies fleeing for their lives as he himself had done less than a week ago.
In his house on the Palatine, Brutus was uncomfortably drenched in a cold sweat and Cassius sat beside him not much better, arms around himself and staring unseeingly at the floor, white with shock. In other circumstances, Brutus might have felt moved by it and offered some comfort, but now Antony was standing before them, supposedly come in conciliation, leaning against a pillar with a most unconciliatory smile on his face.
“Grain monitor?” Brutus repeated, spitting out the words. “Why on Gaia’s earth would I want to be Grain Monitor?”
“It would give you a reason to leave the city with dignity.”
“I have no intention of leaving the city.”
Antony spread his hands like a shopkeeper unable to offer a lower price for a bolt of cloth. “A tour of Asian supply ports would be the most natural thing in the world, nobody could possibly accuse you of running away.”
“I have no intention of leaving the city!”
Antony sighed as though Brutus were an implacable child, and turned to address his mother. “Servilia, my dear, sorry about all this.” He smiled ruefully with false regret. “Got a bit carried away. Excellent speech, incidentally,” he added to Brutus. “A touch too cerebral, perhaps, for that audience, but…”
“Have you been offered any refreshment?” Servilia interrupted icily, somehow turning the very appearance of civility into a threat.
“Some water will be lovely, thank you,” Antony replied. “Please, speak sense to your son; he and his friends must leave the city, I cannot answer for their safety.”
“Do not look so pleased with yourself,” Servilia answered with a smile. “You’re a liar and a breaker of oaths, and you’ve roused a rabble, nothing more. A pantomime actor might have done what you did today.”
Antony was amused by this, in that dark, dangerous way of his. “Lucky it was me that did it then, eh? Else you would now be on your knees sucking pantomime cock.”
He turned is attentions to Brutus and said, in a tone implying it was exactly what he wished, “I have no wish to abuse or humiliate you. I only wish you gone.”
“We are going nowhere,” said Servilia, with impressive, haughty determination.
“No,” Antony agreed, “not you, at least. The men shall leave. You will stay here in the city with me as my guest.”
Servilia laughed. It was a skill Brutus admired in her to laugh in the face of Antony’s threats. “Hostage, you mean?”
“If you like.”
“You may wish as you will,” said Cassius suddenly, roused from his stupor. “We yet have all the Senate behind us, and all the men of quality!”
Antony lost all his pretence of joviality at that; what little amusement he got from toying with Brutus evaporated in Cassius’ presence, as had always been the way.
“And I have an angry mob that will roast and eat your men of quality in the ashes of the Senate house!”
He flung down his cup, and it bounced and rolled towards the impluvium, the splash as it fell into the water masked by the cry of the door slave as Antony shoved him aside and exited the house.
Silence hung heavily in the atrium even as Eleni cuffed the serving girl about the head and gestured at her to fetch the discarded cup. Brutus was trembling with something not quite akin to anger, and directed only towards himself, for having chosen to follow this disastrous path in the first place. He was acutely conscious of Cassius and his mother behind him, able to hear their minds whirring to formulate an impossible way to escape the inevitable.
“It is a rabble, nothing more,” his mother began to repeat in that lofty voice of self-assurance, and Brutus jumped to his feet with the sheer force of his fury.
“It is the people of Rome, mother! Can you not even now admit that Antony has outplayed us?”
“No,” replied Cassius, his eyes bright with desperate fervour, “no, there is the army to control the people, and the Senate - ”
“You heard Antony, he will command the mob to tear apart the Senate if it suits him - and we are not Sulla, or even Caesar, to bring the army to Rome! The army is already in Rome, loyal to Caesar and now loyal to Antony!”
“I will not leave the city to him,” Cassius insisted, but with so little determination it seemed like an admission of defeat.
“Can you still not see, Cassius?” Brutus was heartily sick of the conversation and strode to the door of the tablinium to begin packing his papers; it would be unwise to entrust the job to a slave, who might in these circumstances think of selling his secrets to Antony. “We no longer have any choice.”
***
Continue: Chapter 4
Title: Simulacra (4/10)
Fandom: Rome (HBO)
Rating: R
Notes/disclaimer: HERE.
A/N: I have to apologise for the delay in completing and posting the rest of this story. Life has thrown some unhappy curve-balls my way over the past few months, and I’ve not been able to find the time and the motivation (or at least, not both at the same time) to get any significant work done. So, the rest of this story is finally finished, and is dedicated to my dear recently-departed Dad, who saw in my interest in archaeology and ancient history a perfect opportunity to beat me at my own game, and over the past few years managed to build up a terrifying collection of books on all aspects of Roman history. I think if he knew I’d written 40,000 words of a love story about Cicero, Brutus and Cassius, he’d be utterly bemused, but also hopefully a little bit pleased that I’m this nuts about something so close to his heart. So, this one’s for you, Dad (though, if you’re looking down on this and reading over my shoulder: for the love of god, skip the bits with the mansex, kthx).
Special mention also goes to lord_jagged, among whose Christmas presents to me this year were ridiculously amazing copies of Cicero’s letters and the oration against Cataline (for those poor souls who might be interested, they’re the Public Domain reprints of Shuckburgh’s Letters and MacLardy’s Cataline, so they’re full of ridiculous turn-of-the-century academic footnotes. The Cataline comes with literal and fluent translations and every single word is parsed in the footnotes, so it’s a fantastic book if you’re learning or trying to keep up your Latin). I’m incredibly lucky to have a boyfriend who indulges my insane passion for this sort of thing, though I think you probably ought to feel a little bit sorry for him, because now he’s never going to hear the end of my love of all things Roman.
Chapter 3
Alea Iacta Est
Quod est, eo decet uti; et quicquid agas, agere pro viribus. - What one has, one ought to use; and whatever one does one should do with all one’s might.
Cicero, De Senectute IX
a.d. vii Kal. Feb. 44
"I need someone I can trust."
They were Caesar’s words, and corrupted by wine and disappointment they began to sound like weapons shaped deliberately to wound. Brutus realised to his dismay that his mother had been vindicated; it seemed that to have humbled himself all those years ago in Greece had been needlessly humiliating. He wished he had fallen on his sword after Pharsalus and saved himself these years of betraying his principles for fear of losing Caesar’s hard-won trust - trust which, it seemed, had never been his to lose in the first place.
After the disastrous end to the evening’s meeting he had quarrelled with his lictors and stumbled home distressed and alone, through streets so empty it hinted at the unrest growing amongst the street gangs of the Subura, protection racketeers and market tradesmen made nervous and forced from the streets into the back rooms of taverns. He took a meandering route through old-money mansions along the Via Sacra and arrived home in the middle of the night, where he refused the slave’s offer of wine or water and strode to the tablinium with the intention of locking himself away until the morning.
“Admit no one,” he instructed the boy who hurried to precede him and began lighting lamps. “If my mother asks, I am not at home.”
The boy nodded and gratefully withdrew, and Brutus sank heavily into his father’s chair behind the desk. For a few brief moments he rested his head in his hands and wondered what his ancestors would make of him, and whether they would censure him for his loyalty to Caesar. Loyalty was just as admirable a virtue in a man as love of the republic - perhaps the aberration was to follow either course blindly, something of which he and Cassius were equally guilty.
He took a sheaf of papyrus from the desk. It was smooth and warm, the heavy kind which the historians favoured because it sat happily upon shelves and seemed keen to last into posterity. Bowing his head, he began to write a letter to Cicero, whose counsel he craved but could not risk seeking.
Brutus Cicero SD.
Cicero, it troubles me that lately we have not been such friends as we once were. You have done well to withdraw yourself from business in the senate, and I have been foolish to place my trust in Caesar. To my detriment, at Pharsalus I followed the path you suggested and I find now that I have great cause to regret it. My name, I am told, forbids me to suffer a tyrant, and Caesar has this evening proven himself unworthy of the loyalty which I have shown him in the past. You know what must come next; it is the burden of my ancestry to stand in opposition to tyranny and, having already abandoned my principles, I find that my name is all I have left to uphold.
You once warned me of Cassius’ fervour for the republic and I reminded you that that, in itself, was not a crime. He and I are brothers, and closer even, and I give him absolute trust in the conviction of his actions on the strength of that and of our many years of friendship. After the deed is done, I will not make any claim to authority. My actions will be carried out in the name of the Senate, and you must bring the state to order and steer it safely until it is fit to govern itself. Ever since the Gracchi we have suffered greatly through the rise of popular men; the letter of the law must no longer be permissive to corruption, and I trust you with the task of bringing about its emancipation from the yoke of bribery and greed.
I ask your forgiveness for my decision not to enlist your help with the former part of my undertaking. It is no duty for you - truth ought to be a virtuous supplicant in the temple, not a bloodied wolf growling at its door. Besides which, you value your moderate position, and that is something which I find myself loathe to compromise.
You once offered me the use of your farm in the country in contemplation of our flight from Pompey’s camp, and I find myself wondering now whether, in flight from Rome, you might permit me belatedly to accept. I am tired of the city and of politics and even of my duty to the republic. I should very much like to spend the rest of my days occupied by the farming of peaches, if such a thing were possible. I write in the very absence of hope.
After writing the closing paragraph he struck through everything which preceded it and sank his head into his hands once more, remaining there until morning, when he fed the papyrus into the fire and went to find his mother.
*
It was difficult not to feel aggrieved that the conspiracy to carry out Caesar’s assassination had already been almost entirely decided upon, and required his input only insofar as requiring the legitimacy afforded to it by the addition of his name. He took part in what followed, but balked at the apparent glee with which the deed itself was discussed - Quintus in particular seemed to delight in thinking up horrific ways in which it might be enacted, and took pleasure in Brutus’ pale-faced disgust at his bloodthirstiness. As always, Servilia circled the room like a warship before a battle, and was the only one who could lay a hand on Quintus’ shoulder to calm him. Often she let him talk, apparently willing to indulge his gruesome fantasies, like a mother amused by the precociousness of a child.
At a tense gathering one damp, blustery afternoon, talk turned to those it would be prudent to recruit, to promote the conspiracy in the senate in the aftermath of the deed, and to bolster numbers in the act itself. Brutus had listened to many of the suggestions with distant equanimity, but when Cimber spoke up with a sudden, shrewd expression on his long face, he realised he would not be able to remain silent for long.
“We’ve not yet talked about Cicero. Recruit Cicero, and it’s as good as a senatorial decree - ”
Brutus looked at him sharply. “No. Cicero is not to be involved.”
Cassius threw him a glance, a look of surprised calculation, but Casca pre-empted any comment by clambering to his feet and voicing his opinion.
“Why not? He’s the best proponent we could have, the pedarii would support us without question at Cicero’s behest.”
Brutus had anticipated this argument, and came prepared to answer it. “Cicero’s influence is not what it was. His appeal is that he occupies the centre ground and that, whichever way he leans, the senate leans with him. If he takes an active role in Caesar’s death it will seem that we have bought him, and that will lose him the Senate.”
“Yes,” Decimus spoke up, nodding thoughtfully. “Cicero would be much more useful if he could take up our cause with the pedarii afterwards - we should keep him in the dark for now.”
“Cicero would follow us into Hades after the fact, if he thought that we were on the winning side,” Cassius murmured with a cruel twist of his lips. Casca and the others nodded, smiling, and Brutus was struck by the thought that the group of them, perched there on the edge of their lecti, were vultures anticipating the death of a lion.
“Cicero is to be kept ignorant of our plans,” he reiterated, carefully, eyes on Cassius to make sure he had been understood. Cassius gave a barely perceptible nod of his head.
At that moment there came the secret knock, tapped out on the wall beside the entrance to the triclinium. The conspirators eyed each other nervously, and Servilia herself strode to open the door. Eleni slipped into the room bearing a letter, which she held out to Brutus.
“A letter from Titus Pomponius Atticus, dominus.”
Servilia made as though to intercept the note, but Brutus was swifter, plucking it from Eleni’s hands with a reproachful frown. Mindful of the silence that had fallen, he unrolled the letter and read swiftly, turning his back to mask his mounting dismay as it became increasingly obvious that the cost of his participation in the conspiracy would be unbearably high.
My dear Brutus,
Allow me the pleasure of your company for this evening’s dinner, and I swear I’ll not see you disappointed. Cicero will join us as, I hope, will a number of our other friends. It will be an imperfect number for a correct and proper dinner party, but the quality of the company will more than make up for its paucity. What a pleasant occasion it will be for us to become reacquainted after my sojourn in Buthrotum. Cicero also permits me to add that it has been far too long since he last saw you, and he awaits your attendance with utmost anticipation!
Atticus.
He swallowed around the galling knowledge that the days of pleasant dinners and idle conversation were now over. The thought of implicating Cicero, or indeed Atticus, in the business of conspiracy, whether by word, deed, or association, was unconscionable.
“Is the boy waiting?” he asked.
Eleni nodded, and Brutus excused himself, aware of his mother and Cassius exchanging glances behind his back, to compose a note expressing his regret that he would be unable to attend.
*
Later that evening, Cicero and Atticus sat alone in Atticus’ triclinium, eating and drinking far more than was sensible, and feeling rather depressed by the lack of entertaining conversation.
“What a sad day it is,” Cicero murmured grimly, “when old men cannot summon company for an impromptu party.”
Atticus concurred. It had been many months since a full complement of guests had occupied the couches in his refurbished triclinium, and he had hoped his return to Rome would have provided adequate motive for at least a handful of his closest friends to visit.
“I wonder about Brutus’ absence,” he said. “He’s usually so keen to spend an evening here. Perhaps I flatter myself, but I had considered we unhappy pair to be two of his more preferred companions.”
Cicero sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “I fear, in that case, that we may have been usurped in Brutus’ affections.”
“Oh?”
“You must have heard about Cassius’ return from Syria.”
Atticus shrugged. “I’m ashamed to say I’ve been ensconced in my library for rather too long.”
Cicero fixed him with a wry look. “You must be the only man in Rome not aware of it. Antony’s all but spitting blood, and no doubt persuading Caesar to have the fool run through the moment he sets foot in the senate.”
“After all the business with the Pontians, I should think Cassius would do himself more favours by staying safely in the East.”
“That was years ago, and forgotten - nominally, at least - by Caesar. In any case, I’ve no doubt his appearance at Servilia’s is the reason for Brutus’ absence. His influence on Brutus has always been profound. They were close as boys - I don’t think you knew the family then - and always to be found together, before Cassius’ marriage to Servilia’s youngest girl.”
Cicero gave an affected toss of his head as he concluded this little story - the same gesture he made in the senate in an attempt to feign indifference - and drank uncharacteristically deeply from his wine cup.
Atticus privately worried about his friend’s fondness for Brutus. Since the ignominy of the return from Pharsalus and the induction of Brutus to their social circle, he had often noted the softness around Cicero’s eyes when he smiled at things which Brutus had said, and noted the eagerness to please which crept into Cicero’s voice as he recounted anecdotes and performed like a peacock for Brutus’ approval. Now he observed his friend’s downturned mouth and hoped Cassius’ stay in Rome would prove to be fleeting, and that Brutus’ absence would not be cause for the onset of a protracted bout of self-destructive depression on Cicero’s part.
“Come, now,” he said. “Enough of this misery. Let us turn to this matter of Vetullius and his treatise on Plato. He can’t mean to publish, can he, except in certain anticipation of being roundly mocked?”
Cicero smiled at him, feeling melancholic and not at all in the mood for critical discussion. “You know far too well how to distract me, Atticus. I suppose I ought to thank you.”
“Nonsense. It’s as much for my own good as for yours; you’re so terribly boring in the depths of this sort of despondency. Now, the Platonica, I demand an honest opinion.”
*
a.d. ix Id. Mart. 44
It was the day of Caesar’s great induction of one hundred new senators, bearded and moustachioed barbarians from Cisalpine Gaul and plebeians from the streets of the Subura. The conspirators, united in their abhorrence of the very idea of raising such men to senatorial rank, stood together in the gallery, observing the proceedings.
“I swear I saw that one selling fish in the forum,” Cimber muttered bitterly as they looked down upon Caesar’s men, entering the Curia for the first time and gazing about with identical, comical expressions of wonder.
“At least he’s Roman,” Cassius pointed out. “A good Roman fishmonger is a fine nobleman compared to some of these Belgians and Celts who call themselves ‘chiefs’.”
“There’s one over there with an earring.”
They fell into sullen silence and watched Caesar enter with the ubiquitous Lucius Vorenus dogging his steps like a loyal pet lion.
“It’s the end, eh?”
Cicero joined them in the gallery and leant beside Brutus, close enough that Brutus could feel the warmth of him, and caught the scent of silphium and honey, which told him Cicero must have recently been suffering from a sore throat. He contained himself and barely glanced to his left, noting with depressed resignation Cicero’s pointed indifference to his presence.
“The Gauls have invaded! But don’t be so glum; they will return to their ghastly mountain hovels soon enough. Caesar will only summon them back when he needs their support for some fresh outrage.”
Brutus had done his best to distance himself from Cicero - if he could not share confidences with him anymore, and it was dangerous to seek out his company, it was best the thing were done properly. It was as his mother had instructed him; he had hardened his heart. And it was also as Cassius wanted it, which rankled, somehow. Having Cicero hovering at the periphery of their group was awkward and unwelcome. Brutus felt guilty enough as it was for having so shamelessly abandoned a friend, and needed no reminder of Cassius’ disdain for what his fellow conspirators perceived as cowardice and what Brutus was increasingly beginning to understand to be Cicero’s good sense and prudence.
“The great man shadowing Caesar is the famous Lucius Vorenus, one assumes,” he said, watching the pair of them make their rounds amongst the old senators, Caesar’s smiles and handshakes doing little to reassure those who felt bewildered by the appearance of so many barbarians in their midst.
“Indeed.”
“Affectionate, aren’t they,” Cassius said, with a glance at Brutus. “Might be father and son.”
Brutus said nothing. There was no need for such a pointed and deliberately painful observation; his conviction was firm, without the need for Cassius to rub salt into the wound left by Caesar’s recent mistrust.
“Caesar would have the humble people think so,” Cicero agreed, meanwhile. “He keeps the wretched man by his side constantly.”
“This beast of the field is a senator of Rome!”
“Do not fret so, Casca,” Cicero soothed. “We timid subjects of King Caesar must learn to be tolerant.”
Cassius and Cimber shifted impatiently and Brutus wished fervently that Cicero would take his leave before any imprudent words could be exchanged.
“I believe I shall go home and stupefy myself with wine,” the older man announced, thankfully. “Good day to you all.”
He glanced at Brutus as he was leaving, a regretful, admonishing look which Brutus detested even as he stamped down his desire to follow after him and spend the afternoon in pleasant insobriety.
“Old fool,” murmured Cassius, casting another tactless glance in Brutus’ direction.
Brutus failed to speak up in Cicero’s defence and the taste left by this minor betrayal was bitter; it remained so when he raised his hand in greeting to Caesar, who was looking up at them from the Senate floor and smiling.
*
Id. Mart. 44
Cicero woke early, as was usual, and went into the garden to eat a meagre breakfast, just as a pale and sickly sun was rising over the Esquiline. Tiro brought the morning’s letters, which consisted mostly of pleas for assistance in rural property disputes he had no interest in undertaking, and invitations to dinners he had no intention of attending. Tiro then handed him a list of the clients already queuing by the front door. In years past, it had always been Cicero’s policy to receive clients as early in the morning as possible, but of late he had grown tired of their wrangling and their squabbling. It was hard to escape the niggling awareness that their eagerness to receive his patronage only made a mockery of his inexorably dwindling influence. He longed, sometimes, to order them all to be driven into the street and henceforth have a notice pinned to the door: Marcus Tullius Cicero is no longer at home to hangers-on, for the little good it may have done you.
He decided instead to begin the journey to the Campus Martius a little earlier than usual, so that it could be made at leisure. Cicero had grumbled often that Caesar’s rebuilding of the curia - the Curia Julia, as the people had started to call it - was of no greater inconvenience than when one considered that the walk from his house to the Campus Martius was that bit more ardous than that to the Forum, and today he took up a similar refrain. The matters up for debate in that day’s senate were unlikely to amount to anything particularly interesting, and Cicero did not anticipate having to contribute anything more than a few words of generic approbation, and so had no need to prepare a speech. The walk through the city was pleasant, the sun warm though weak, and he dictated a brief letter to his brother Quintus, which Tiro took down on wax and would later send with the next dispatch to the farm in Tusculum.
They arrived at Pompey’s Theatre, whose curia would act as the setting for the senate meeting, with little time to spare before the opening of the session. By the time he and Tiro reached the Porticus Pompei at the entrance to the Theatre’s garden, he was happy indeed to hurry towards his seat with only cursory greetings to Casca and Cimber, and the others of his fellow senators gathered outside.
The curia filled quickly, the general murmur of conversation rising steadily as senators took their places and continued to discuss the business of the day. Cicero had twisted in his seat to invite Sergillus to visit him at home in order to continue an argument about the facility of the right of inheritance between cousins, when he became aware of a sudden spreading hush, and a commotion behind him on the Curia floor.
He looked around and saw with incomprehension that Cimber was tussling with Caesar in the centre of the floor. It was, he assumed, related to the fool’s brother’s continuing exile, and seemed at first to be vaguely embarrassing - Cicero was on the verge of averting his eyes in disgust when Cimber made a grab for Caesar’s toga and pulled it free, falling back to cry “What are you waiting for? Now! Now!”
Cicero watched, aghast, as Casca sprang forward and Caesar closed his hand around the blade of a short dagger, the kind it was fashionable these days to carry if one was young, rich and foolish. The first blood spilled onto Caesar’s tunic even as the next man, Cassius, stepped forward and slashed at Caesar’s face, followed by another, who plunged the knife into his back.
As Caesar reeled and fought against his assailants, the rest of the senate rose to its feet, a great susurrating babble of panic swelling to drown out the cries of Caesar’s attackers. Cicero rose with them, struggling to gain a better view of the commotion, mind whirring furiously to think of the right course of action.
As each man took their turn and span away, the pedarii began to scatter. Cicero made a swift search of the downturned faces of the assassins and spotted Brutus standing aghast at the edge of the melee, seemingly struck mute and immobile by the horror of what was unfolding before him on the floor. He looked up and by chance met Cicero’s appalled gaze, and in that moment Cicero intended to call out to him, in order to offer him the chance to abandon madness and come away to safety. He would have done so were it not for the wretched, panicked din and the undercurrent, like a heavy burst of hailstones, of six hundred pairs of sandals dashing for the Forum. He looked back as the tide of his fellow senators began to sweep him away, and wished for a deeply painful moment that he had put a stop to all the business with Cassius when it had begun, and had used what little influence he had had over Brutus to dissuade him from such foolishness. But Marcus Tullius Cicero was a creature of habit, and cowardice is often the most difficult of all the vices to shake. Bowed by regret, he allowed himself to be swept away by the throng, the last glimpse he had of Brutus being of an anguished figure at the edge of a pack of wolves, and of Cassius, hovering behind him, the grim spectre of Brutus’ unfolding destiny, pressing a knife into Brutus’ open hand.
Once forced out into the forum Cicero frowned, wrapped his toga around himself more tightly, and instructed Tiro, running beside him, to go and advise Terentia that it would be prudent to leave the city. Divorced they might be, and disgusted with him she almost certainly still was, but she had been a good wife to him for the greater part of his life and to make certain of her safety was really the very least he could do for her now. He thought of her approval when he had first introduced Brutus as a personal friend, so pleased with him for finally making fortuitous connections. His frown deepened on that unhappy thought, and he fled with the rest of the crowd.
*
Much later that afternoon, when a body was brought into the atrium of the house of the Junii, Brutus schooled himself to avert his eyes from the gaping crimson maw of Quintus’ throat. He thought of Antony’s hands, which had clasped his shoulders as Antony brushed a lingering kiss against his cheek, and those same hands’ cruel grip around Cicero’s wrists a year ago in the senate. He looked down at his own trembling fingers and for a moment thought them still red with Caesar’s blood. His mother looked over the body dispassionately and instructed the slaves to remove it from the house and then throw it in the river. Cassius cast Brutus a baleful look as though to say: ‘You see, the kind of man you have tied us to?’
Cicero, who had sidled around to bask in the conspirators’ imagined glory, looked pale and thoughtful in the wake of Antony’s threats, and took his leave in a hurry for the Argiletum, to continue packing for his sojourn in the country. Brutus was not at all sorry that Quintus was dead.
*
It was now late in the evening - the crowds which had fled at the news of Caesar’s death had been replaced by a violent mob of veterans and opportunists, trouble-makers all. The city rang with the sound of furious disorder. Cicero had decided to make for the house on the Argiletum because he was sure it was safer than risking the journey to the Palatine along the Via Sacra, which had been occupied by the mob.
He was in the midst of instructing the slaves in packing belongings for the journey to the country, when Tiro alerted him to a sudden thumping on the wooden gate which led from the garden into the alleyway beyond. Anticipating the worst, Tiro had ordered the slaves to arm themselves with torches and whatever could be found in the way of weapons.
Cicero thought crossly that he would not be cowed into hiding himself away within his own home, and brushed Tiro aside to join Heracles, the heavy-set kitchen slave, as he led the torch-lit procession through the garden and cautiously opened the gate.
Outside stood two figures, their faces obscured by the cowls of their cloaks.
“Show yourselves,” growled Heracles, thrusting the torch closer to the pair.
The taller of the two cast off his cowl and revealed familiar features, thrown starkly into relief by the shadows cast by Heracles’ torch.
“Brutus!” Cicero exclaimed. “Are you mad? There is a mob outside, intent on your murder!”
“Forgive me, Cicero. Will you let us in?”
Cicero stood aside and allowed Brutus and his companion, whom Cicero recognised as Brutus’ faithful body slave Pandrosius, into the garden, whereupon Heracles quickly shut and barred the door behind them.
“What did you expect to achieve by coming here?” Cicero demanded, ushering Brutus into the house. “I’m powerless to help you; the senate are hardy likely to listen to sense, much less the people. Lepidus has a legion in the Forum - ”
“I’m not about to make you supplicate yourself to him,” Brutus replied quietly. “And I’m well aware this is trouble of my own making, I don’t intend to rely on you to extricate me.”
“Well then, why have you come?” He tried not to meet Brutus’ eyes, because cowardice had served him well thus far, and he did not want to be tempted into reckless bravery. Brutus, for his part, regarded him silently, before raising his hands to his face and letting out a ragged sigh.
“Even after Antony’s visit, my mother’s house is still full of the usual party of glad-handers and leeches, all of them mad with wine and the scent of Caesar’s blood. Cassius and my sister are plotting our next move, and my mother seems determined to ensnare herself another lover to replace the one she’s just lost... You had the decency to leave immediately after Antony, which at the moment makes you the most desirable company.”
Cicero waited a long moment, then strode to Brutus and embraced him, kissing his cheek firmly in a gesture of sympathy and consolation. Coward he may be, but he recognised in Brutus some familiar measure of failing courage and detested it. “It is done now,” he said gently, almost kindly, as though he were speaking to Tullia as a child after she had broken a favourite toy. “For better or for worse, it cannot be undone.”
He called for wine and bread, and led Brutus through the house, into a room which afforded them more privacy, and where Brutus could sink gratefully onto a lectus, toga slipping from one shoulder with its embroidered border hanging creased and stained.
“Is there much trouble on the streets, apart from Anthony’s mob?” Cicero asked after a long silence.
“Some,” Brutus replied. “Not as much as I had expected. Though I hadn’t really thought about the city - I mean, the people - I hadn’t thought they might not welcome what we planned to do…”
“Half the city has retreated behind closed doors and shuttered windows, and the other half rampages here and there making petty trouble under the banner of revolution. Thus has it always been with the mob.”
A slave appeared, bearing bread and wine, figs, and a bowl of sweetened dates, Brutus’ particular favourites. Cicero detected Tiro’s hand in this, and silently gave thanks for his omniscient friend. He took a mouthful of wine, barely watered - Tiro again - and motioned for Brutus to do the same. The younger man did so, but with little enthusiasm, and seemed to balk at the sight of his own hands in front of him as he reached for the bread, even shying away from the dates when they were offered.
Cicero dismissed the slave and settled back against his lectus, finding himself similarly uninterested in the food, but picking at a fig for lack of any other distraction.
“What are your plans, given Antony’s position?” he asked finally, though the undertone was obvious and Brutus took it as a question about his mother and Cassius.
He placed his drained cup on the table before he replied. Cicero reached immediately to refill it. “What can we do, but abide by Antony’s terms?” He gave a low laugh. “My mother would see Atia stripped and flogged before the rostra, and the loss of that opportunity seems to trouble her more than anything else.”
Cicero smiled grimly, “Are we all to be bound by Antony’s desires, and consider ourselves fortunate?”
“I’ll not apologise for conducting this business honourably, Cicero.”
Cicero shook his head, dismissing the argument with a wave of his hand. “As I said, what’s done is done. But you must have a clear aim in mind. What do you intend to do, have you given it any further thought?”
Brutus gave an imperceptible shrug. “Give an honest and honourable speech at Caesar’s funeral, make clear our motivations and rely on the good sense of the people to prevail. And you?”
Cicero made a face suggesting he thought good sense might be in fairly short supply. “I am heading to the country, as I said. Retreat seems the wisest course of action, for the moment.”
“Wisdom seems increasingly to be synonymous with cowardice,” Brutus agreed quietly. It was a token of their friendship, he thought, that Cicero did not bristle under perceived criticism. “When will you be leaving?”
“Soon, I hope. It might seem cowardly but I would urge you to consider doing the same. By absenting ourselves from the city for a month or so, we might hope to draw Antony into damning himself by virtue of his own incompetence. The senate will watch him attempt to rule the city as though she were an errant slave, and they’ll soon be desperate to get rid of him.”
Brutus nodded. “I hope you’ll be proved right, but I’m afraid I cannot leave.”
“Ah. And may I ask why?” The question was phrased in a manner Brutus recognised from many prosecutions, when it was clear that Cicero already knew the answer, and only wished the defendant to damn himself by virtue of his own confession.
“Cassius and I have drawn our lots together,” he admitted, the bitter taste of the words thick on his tongue. “To abandon him now - I cannot. Besides, we have the republic to save.”
This attempt at levity fell rather flat and they sank into contemplative silence as Brutus took a small handful of dates. Cicero watched him eat them, one after the other. He was struck, suddenly, by the realisation that, in the many years that they had been friends, Brutus had never seemed more in need of reassurance. Since the miserable time in Caesar’s camp after the disaster of Pharsalus, Cicero had felt the weight of unspoken responsibility, and gratitude for Brutus’ inarticulated, uncomplicated trust. Now, brought together and held together by the consequences of Caesar’s death, he felt it all the more keenly. Brutus chose another date, and Cicero decided, in honour of a friendship recently in danger of unravelling, to offer him respite from intrigue and deception, for a few hours more at the very least.
“Will you stay longer?” he asked, surprised by his own earnestness. “I guarantee you’ll find no glad-handers here, inebriated or otherwise.”
Brutus looked to be in two minds. He took a swift mouthful of wine and straightened his toga. “I ought to be getting home. My mother will be pouring honey into Cassius’ ear, I’d hate him to give my sister any reason to fly into one of her rages.”
“I’m sure Cassius can look after himself. He has married one Caepio; he’ll have no difficulty fending off another. Come, I’ll have the slaves open a room.”
Brutus hesitated, and for a long moment Cicero thought he might refuse the invitation. His answer seemed incongruously significant, putting Cicero in mind of the portentous dreams by which Caesar’s poor wife Calpurnia was said to lately have been afflicted.
“I’m sure you’re right,” Brutus said, however, settling gratefully back onto the lectus and offering Cicero a weary smile. “Though if anyone should ask, I put up a much better fight before letting myself be persuaded.”
*
a.d. xiv Kal. Apr.
It seemed, after all, that Cicero had been right to be sceptical where the good sense of the Roman people was concerned. Antony’s eulogy to Caesar, as melodramatic a piece of stage-acting as Brutus had ever witnessed, had stirred the crowd into a frenzy, and they had chased Brutus and Cassius, along with Decimus and Casca and a number of the other conspirators, from the Forum to their respective houses, snapping at their heels like a baying pack of hunting dogs. The Lictors were of little help, offering only token resistance before breaking ranks and running for shelter in the Subura. Brutus imagined Antony had laughed heartily, having climbed down from the rostra still clutching Caesar’s bloodied toga, at the thought of his newest, greatest enemies fleeing for their lives as he himself had done less than a week ago.
In his house on the Palatine, Brutus was uncomfortably drenched in a cold sweat and Cassius sat beside him not much better, arms around himself and staring unseeingly at the floor, white with shock. In other circumstances, Brutus might have felt moved by it and offered some comfort, but now Antony was standing before them, supposedly come in conciliation, leaning against a pillar with a most unconciliatory smile on his face.
“Grain monitor?” Brutus repeated, spitting out the words. “Why on Gaia’s earth would I want to be Grain Monitor?”
“It would give you a reason to leave the city with dignity.”
“I have no intention of leaving the city.”
Antony spread his hands like a shopkeeper unable to offer a lower price for a bolt of cloth. “A tour of Asian supply ports would be the most natural thing in the world, nobody could possibly accuse you of running away.”
“I have no intention of leaving the city!”
Antony sighed as though Brutus were an implacable child, and turned to address his mother. “Servilia, my dear, sorry about all this.” He smiled ruefully with false regret. “Got a bit carried away. Excellent speech, incidentally,” he added to Brutus. “A touch too cerebral, perhaps, for that audience, but…”
“Have you been offered any refreshment?” Servilia interrupted icily, somehow turning the very appearance of civility into a threat.
“Some water will be lovely, thank you,” Antony replied. “Please, speak sense to your son; he and his friends must leave the city, I cannot answer for their safety.”
“Do not look so pleased with yourself,” Servilia answered with a smile. “You’re a liar and a breaker of oaths, and you’ve roused a rabble, nothing more. A pantomime actor might have done what you did today.”
Antony was amused by this, in that dark, dangerous way of his. “Lucky it was me that did it then, eh? Else you would now be on your knees sucking pantomime cock.”
He turned is attentions to Brutus and said, in a tone implying it was exactly what he wished, “I have no wish to abuse or humiliate you. I only wish you gone.”
“We are going nowhere,” said Servilia, with impressive, haughty determination.
“No,” Antony agreed, “not you, at least. The men shall leave. You will stay here in the city with me as my guest.”
Servilia laughed. It was a skill Brutus admired in her to laugh in the face of Antony’s threats. “Hostage, you mean?”
“If you like.”
“You may wish as you will,” said Cassius suddenly, roused from his stupor. “We yet have all the Senate behind us, and all the men of quality!”
Antony lost all his pretence of joviality at that; what little amusement he got from toying with Brutus evaporated in Cassius’ presence, as had always been the way.
“And I have an angry mob that will roast and eat your men of quality in the ashes of the Senate house!”
He flung down his cup, and it bounced and rolled towards the impluvium, the splash as it fell into the water masked by the cry of the door slave as Antony shoved him aside and exited the house.
Silence hung heavily in the atrium even as Eleni cuffed the serving girl about the head and gestured at her to fetch the discarded cup. Brutus was trembling with something not quite akin to anger, and directed only towards himself, for having chosen to follow this disastrous path in the first place. He was acutely conscious of Cassius and his mother behind him, able to hear their minds whirring to formulate an impossible way to escape the inevitable.
“It is a rabble, nothing more,” his mother began to repeat in that lofty voice of self-assurance, and Brutus jumped to his feet with the sheer force of his fury.
“It is the people of Rome, mother! Can you not even now admit that Antony has outplayed us?”
“No,” replied Cassius, his eyes bright with desperate fervour, “no, there is the army to control the people, and the Senate - ”
“You heard Antony, he will command the mob to tear apart the Senate if it suits him - and we are not Sulla, or even Caesar, to bring the army to Rome! The army is already in Rome, loyal to Caesar and now loyal to Antony!”
“I will not leave the city to him,” Cassius insisted, but with so little determination it seemed like an admission of defeat.
“Can you still not see, Cassius?” Brutus was heartily sick of the conversation and strode to the door of the tablinium to begin packing his papers; it would be unwise to entrust the job to a slave, who might in these circumstances think of selling his secrets to Antony. “We no longer have any choice.”
***
Continue: Chapter 4