I have heard Caesar talk of the corruption of Republican institutions and of the corruption of feeling which this breeds. I do not dispute that this has happened, though I would lay the blame principally on men like Caesar himself. Yes, and on Pompey too; I do not deny that. When these two, and Marcus Crassus came together at Lucca, they engaged themselves in a criminal conspiracy against the Free State.
If I adhered to Pompey rather than Caesar, it was not because I had greater respect for him. It was simply because I considered him less dangerous. He was weak where Caesar was strong. He was indecisive where Caesar was determined. I never thought the Republic safe in Pompey's hands, but I knew that his dominance was less secure than a victorious Caesar's would prove to be.
You may argue that Caesar plans many beneficial reforms. My respect for Caesar is sufficiently strong to deter me from offering contradiction. Instead I offer this warning: the means by which a reform is effected may negate any benefit which in other circumstances that reform would bring.
If you can believe in your heart that Caesar intends to restore the Republic and retire into private life, then my fears may be unfounded, and my course of action may have been misguided.
But can you believe that?
And, even if you could, can you believe that a Republic restored by Caesar's hand and as a result of Caesar's methods, could possess any vitality?
I accept that I am heading for failure. So be it. I shall fight my cause honourably to the death. And I shall die convinced that posterity will judge me more favourably than Caesar's friends may do. I address this letter to you, however, because there is one friend of Caesar's whose good opinion I still value and seek, and because I hope that it may give you occasion to reflect on the dangers for Rome of the path which you have chosen to follow. You will understand, my dear Decimus Brutus, that I do not question your virtue. I do not doubt that you have adhered to Caesar for the best and most selfless of motives. I ask only that you should consider anew where Caesar is heading, that you should consider the implications for Rome, the Empire, the institutions of the Republic, the great noble families that have made that Republic and finally for liberty itself, which no good man surrenders save with his life, of Caesar's dominance.
Caesar, you may still say, can be trusted. Very well; so be it again. But Caesar will have successors. Will it be possible to trust them in like manner?
Caesar may continue to show outward respect for the institutions of the Republic, even while he subverts them. Consuls may still be elected, even though Caesar may fix the elections and though the consuls will be powerless. But in time the office of consul will become a merely decorative honour. Power will rest with the dictator, who should more properly be termed, in the Greek fashion, the tyrant. Free speech will wither, for it cannot nourish when the government is in the hands of a single person. Orientals will hasten to designate the tyrant a god. Even the Senate will cravenly follow suit. Caesar may accept divine honours with the scepticism proper to a Roman nobleman. His successors will come to think of themselves as gods, with the power of gods, the liberty of gods.
That is the future which Caesar is constructing. When the day comes on which a Roman nobleman thinks it proper to prostrate himself before the tyrant, as Orientals do before the despots to whom they are utterly subjugated, that will be the result of Caesar's victory.
I urge you to think on these matters, dear Decimus, and draw back before you become an agent in the destruction of the liberty that depends on the survival of the Republic.
I am as ever your friend and equal, Labienus, now equal in honour, but one who in the future I envisage, which I shall not survive to experience, would find himself your equal only in dishonour and servitude.
This was a dangerous letter to receive. I was incensed that he should have thought to send it to me. Fortunately, minute enquiries revealed that he had taken the precaution of having it secretly delivered. It was probable, therefore, that it had not been intercepted and copied for Caesar's eyes. Nevertheless I took care to observe him closely when we next met and for some months after, to see whether his manner to me had changed or whether he was regarding me with some suspicion.
Naturally, too, I rejected Labienus' arguments. They were an attempt at putting a brave face on his desertion. Few men can resist seeking public reasons to justify their private behaviour. Labienus had realised that he had made the wrong choice. He had been betrayed by his own ambition. Therefore he now pretended to me, even perhaps to himself, that he had joined himself to Pompey not because he thought Pompey would win, but rather because he recognised his cause as being morally and politically to be preferred. That was nonsense, of course.
Of course it was nonsense. I assured myself time and again that it was nonsense. Only I found myself returning to his letter, extracting it from its place of concealment, and brooding on its message.
Why, I was even tempted to show it to young Octavius. That, of course, was in the weeks of my infatuation with the boy. Prudence restrained me. I might dote on the youth, but my judgment was not so far destr oyed as to make me suppose that he could be trusted not to reveal the existence of this compromising letter to Caesar.
Often since, I have told myself that if I had not found something in the letter from the first, I would have burned it straightaway.
Now, I recall words attributed to Cicero when he heard of Labienus' defection.
"Labienus is a hero. Never was an act more splendid. If nothing else comes of it, he has at least made Caesar smart. We have a civil war upon us, not because we have quarrelled among ourselves, but on account of one abandoned and ambitious citizen."
Sedition, as I thought at the time.
After Munda, I sought out Labienus' corpse. The expression on the face was calm. Did a tear escape me?
CHAPTER 11
For the moment, however, all was sunshine and general rejoicing. Even those who had supported the defeated party could not disguise from themselves their relief that the terrible civil wars were over. All felt as if a great weight had been lifted. Women, happy to think that their sons, husbands and lovers would no longer be sacrificed to Mars, united in praise of Caesar. An uncommonly large number of children were conceived in noble families that autumn. When Longina confided her own pregnancy to me, I scarcely doubted that I was the father.
In the Senate, men tumbled over each other in their eagerness to lavish honours on Caesar. Cicero, it must be said, while urging such honours, also recommended that they be kept "within the measure of humanity". But power attracts toadies, and they soon overstepped that measure. It was reasonable to order a temple to be built in honour of Clemency, since none could deny that, except in Spain, Caesar's clemency to his defeated opponents had been remarkable, an honour to Caesar himself and to the Roman people in general. When one thought of how barbarian princes and Orientals were accustomed to make a hecatomb of their conquered rivals, the clemency that Caesar displayed renewed one's pride in Romanitas (to use a word then coming into fashion). It was perhaps appropriate that my cousin Marcus Brutus, who was such a conspicuous example of the dictator's forbearance, should introduce this proposal in the Senate; and few people were as critical of his leaden delivery and pompous platitudes as I was. Indeed, the general opinion was that Brutus had spoken in a manner worthy of his noble ancestors. I have never understood how Markie so easily attracted golden opinions. I suppose there was something in his manner — his lack of humour, his incapacity for irony — which appealed to the dullards who in any assembly are bound to be in the majority.