Caesar

I may say that I had got this idea from young Octavius, but I saw no reason to attribute it to him at that moment. If Caesar assented, then I would remark that my suggestion was the fruit of conversations I had had with his nephew; if he declined my proposal, then it would have been unfair to lay the responsibility at Octavius' door. Besides, I didn't want Caesar to suppose that I was capable of being influenced by one whom he thought of as a mere boy. He might have started to enquire more closely into the relations between us, and I had no fancy that he should do so.

"I had never thought of you as a political theorist, Mouse," he said. "Perhaps there is something in what you say, and it is certainly true that I intend to reform the Senate, though I don't remember discussing the matter with you. But your immediate proposition is absurd. Vercingetorix conducted a vicious and unprincipled war against us. Thousands of my soldiers lost friends and comrades as a result of his obduracy and treachery. I will not cheat them of the death they have a right to expect. Nor will I put other Roman lives at risk by doing anything which may encourage barbarian chieftains to think they can oppose our arms, and not suffer as a consequence. To spare Vercingetorix would be a terrible precedent, which would let loose a tide of bloodshed throughout the Empire. Do you not realise, you fool" — yes, that is how he addressed me, and it was at that moment that I understood the cold anger I had provoked — "do you not realise what holds the Empire together? I will tell you in one word, and that word is 'fear'. Perhaps a time may come when moods will have changed, and when the subject peoples will look on Rome as a Father. But not yet; now the most we can hope is that they will respect and fear us as their master. And even if that moment of which I speak arrives, is it not true that there is always something of fear even in the love which a son may feel for his father? Mouse, Mouse, two emotions rule the world and govern the ordinary man: fear and greed."

"What of love of virtue and glory? You cannot discount them."

"I spoke of ordinary men, not of the exceptional man. Yes, I myself…" he paused, drummed his fingers on the table and looked, for a long silence, into the distance as if great armies ranged themselves before him and he gazed on twilight battlefields disturbed only by the cries of the wounded and the circling of those birds of prey that feed on the dead. "Yes, Caesar may be driven by the loves you speak of, the desire for fame and glory, for that supreme virtue that stands aloof from the common run of curs, but they, snarling and cringing in the mire, what can they know of such things? No, fear and greed are the passions that make men what they are… There are moments also, at owl-light, when it seems to me that even Caesar's search for glory is but another, more rarefied expression of greed. It may be a form of fear also; for what would Caesar be without such glory — something which even he dare not contemplate? No, Mouse, Vercingetorix must die the death prepared and ordained for him. Besides," his voice lightened and he bestowed on me that smile which of all smiles could most surely charm men, "the mob might turn against me if I spared him. They like death and executions, haven't you noticed?"

He stood up, took my arm and led me to the window whence we could gaze down on the Forum, busy in preparation for tomorrow's Triumph. He pinched my ear.

"Mouse, there have been moments when I have hoped that you at least understood me. But it seems not. So let me speak plainly. You compare my determination that Vercingetorix should die with my clemency towards those senators and others who have opposed me in our terrible civil wars, and you confess yourself baffled. But consider that clemency: does it abate the fear I arouse in such men? Not at all. Almost the reverse. A Roman nobleman who owes his life to my clemency feels himself forever my inferior. He knows my greatness, because he can never forget that for one terrible long hour I held his life, his neck, between my thumb and forefinger. He has faced extinction at my hands. And he is made conscious of his inferiority by the action of my grace. But a barbarian cannot think like that. He is incapable of it, because his sense of honour is quite different from ours. He would merely think I had in some way gone soft, that Rome could therefore be opposed with impunity. The Roman senator, whom I spare, feels on the other hand in Caesar's clemency Caesar's strength. He stands rebuked by Caesar's refusal to punish him. Besides, Mouse, you must think of this. It is against the law to put Roman citizens to death without trial, and Cicero has never been forgiven for his decision to do so in the case of those who joined with Catiline. But it is different with barbarians, and so Vercingetorix must die."

They say he did so with great courage.

Was it further to mark out his pre-eminence that, in the Pontic Triumph which followed, Caesar ordered that one of the decorated wagons should bear, instead of the customary stage-set representing scenes from the war, merely the legend:

"I came, I saw, I conquered."

The simplicity of the sentiment struck awe and dread in the hearts of all.

I was exhausted when the month of Triumphs was over, for I had been entrusted with many onerous duties and grave responsibilities. These included the organisation of the Troy Game, that sham fight which is one of the oldest and most hallowed of our rituals. It was founded, we believe, by the Father of the Roman People, Aeneas himself, and only youths of noble birth are permitted to take part. There is naturally much competition for selection and this itself would impose a considerable burden on the Master of the Game, for there is no end to the attempts made by parents of candidates of dubious eligibility to persuade him that their son should qualify. I can tell you, I could have had my pick of more than a couple of dozen matrons in the week of selection. Even when the two troops have been chosen, the management of this mimic war is no easy task. It is amazing how even well-bred youths will cheat shamelessly to gain an advantage.

I am proud to be able to say that my mastership of the Troy Game was regarded as exemplary.

I was given one other task of a surprising nature in the weeks that followed the Triumphs. It was a time when Caesar was much occupied with administrative reforms (some of them ill-thought-out) and with the reform of the calendar which Alexandrian Greeks had persuaded him to be desirable. This had taken possession of his mind and was one of the few occasions when he risked unpopularity with the mob, which always hates change of this sort.

While Caesar was involved with these matters, Cicero took it upon himself to publish a eulogistic biography of Cato. I do not think this was intended as a deliberate act of provocation, though no one can be certain of the motives of a man as complicated as Cicero. On the one hand his relations with Caesar were friendly. They dined together, and Cicero rejoiced in the evident delight which Caesar took in his conversation, which, if you discounted the strain of persistent egotism (itself indeed at times almost endearing) was witty, agreeably malicious and superbly wide-ranging. It would indeed have been a dull man who resisted the charm of his historical and philosophical speculations. Of course there were many such dull men, who agreed with Mark Antony that the old man was a prosy bore; but Caesar was not one of them, and neither was I.

Moreover Caesar carried hi s admiration further. When Quin tus Ligarius was prosecuted for bearing arms against Caesar (this prosecution being a notable exception to Caesar's rule of general clemency), he invited Cicero to defend him. "Invited" is too weak an expression; he implored him to do so in terms that could not fail to flatter a man with half Cicero's allotment of vanity. Nevertheless Cicero hesitated, being, as I supposed, fearful of how Caesar would view his intervention. Caesar, however, remarked: "Why may we not give ourselves a pleasure we have not enjoyed for such a long time: of hearing Cicero plead a cause? Especially since I have already determined what I think of Ligarius, who is clearly a bad man as well as my enemy." When these sentiments were relayed to Cicero, he felt it was safe to accept the brief. He spoke with all his old eloquence. Young men who had not previously had the opportunity to hear him in action were amazed. Some were even moved to tears, such was the pathos he evoked. The charm of his delivery, the fertility of his argument, the copiousness of his illustrative examples, combined to render him irresistible. Men reared in camps, who had spent ten years in grim warfare, felt perhaps for the first time the power of oratory. No doubt in the great days of the Republic, they said, such experiences were common; but they came as a revelation in the new world of the dictatorship.