Caesar

"Antony," I said, taking his arm, "this Parthian campaign. Will he go ahead with it?"

"Oh, I should think so, wouldn't you? The old boy's bored, you know." "And after it?"

"After it? Well, I should think it might be the end. First rule of war: don't invade Parthia. I've tried telling him that. Imagine you've done the same in different words. Doesn't do a bit of bloody good, does it. So, it's us for the desert song, and us for… who knows what?"

"That's my opinion. So how do we set about stopping it?"

He lifted his head, like a lion sniffing the breeze.

"Wind's blowing cold from the East. Think you can stop that, old boy?"

I had to admit Antony was right. My fears were intensified when I learned that various members of the old Pompeian party, including some who had affected to be most closely reconciled to Caesar's rule — for that of course is what it was, despite the" punctiliousness with which the traditional posts in the Republic were filled — that some of these, as I say, were urging the Parthian campaign on him. The ignominy of Crassus' defeat was a stain on Rome's reputation, they said, that must be wiped out; and Caesar was the only man capable of doing so. This of course was music to his ears, and he did not reflect that these men urged him to the enterprise in the hope that he would fail.

I confess that the same thought had also occurred to me: that Caesar's death on the Parthian campaign might be the most honourable way out of the difficulties that his continuing and ever-growing ascendancy was now so evidently presenting. But it was not a way of escape that I could honourably dwell on.

Instead, I went to see him at his own house, choosing an hour in the morning when he would not be over-tired as a result of the business he had been transacting, for I had noticed that in recent months, he was more amenable to reason in the first part of the day; and that when he was tired his mind delighted in ever more extravagant flights.

He received me kindly, as was his wont, and dismissed his secretaries when I said I had important matters which I wished to raise.

For a moment we sat in silence. All at once he looked an old man. It was the first time that thought had ever struck me, and I experienced a wave of tenderness and affection.

"Well, Mouse," he said, "it must be a grave matter that brings you here at this time of the day when you know I am accustomed to be at work."

"It is precisely of work that I wish to speak."

I then explained to him the causes of my anxiety: that it was now nine months since the Battle of Munda; that there could be no question but that the civil wars were at last concluded; but that it seemed to me that we were no nearer a resolution of the problems that had caused the wars.

He frowned when I said that, as if to remind me that in his opinion, and as he had so often asserted, the cause of the wars had been the determination of his enemies to destroy him.

So, to prevent him from raising the point and thus provoking an argument that might divert me from the course on which I had determined, I interpolated an acknowledgment that this had been the immediate cause of the wars. That of course, I admitted, had properly been removed. But I hastened to add that we both realised, as historians and politicians well versed in these matters, that the underlying causes of the wars went beyond personalities and turned on the question of the Constitution. Now Caesar had been granted the title of Perpetual Dictator, which ensured that authority could be maintained in Rome and throughout the Empire. Yet I could not see, I said, with all the respect that I could muster, how a perpetual dictatorship could answer.

"I must warn you," I said, "that there are even some who put it about that you wish to be crowned king. It is naturally a rumour which I deny whenever I hear it."

Again he frowned, then waved a hand to indicate that I was to continue.

Very well, I said; he had made minor reforms. He had enlarged the Senate, and although many of our fellow members of the old nobility complained that those he had admitted were scarcely gentlemen, I was in full agreement with him as to the value of the enlargement. Likewise, I was in favour of his decision to increase the number of praetors and quaestors, not only because it gave more men the rewards of office, but because there was more public business of a greater variety of sorts to be transacted. And yet such reforms could hardly be thought sufficient to tackle fundamental problems.

I hurried on here, for I could see that he was becoming bored, and I did not wish to exhaust his patience.

And now, I said, he was engaged in preparing for war against Parthia. There were good reasons for such an undertaking. Nevertheless it must distract us from other business for two or three years, and in this interval, with Caesar absent from Rome, it could not be imagined that any of the causes of our discontents would be removed. The Parthian expedition, dangerous in itself, was therefore in a sense an act of evasion. I spoke respectfully, of course, but it seemed to me that the most urgent task before him was the repair of our fractured State…

I paused, dismayed. He had ceased to listen. His gaze had drifted away. He had withdrawn himself, perhaps into boredom, perhaps into dreams. Then, made aware of my silence, he gave me a smile that had all its old accustomed charm.

"The Queen of Egypt tells me that the title of King would be of great service in the East. I care nothing for the nonsense of titles, but she may be right. Naturally, many in Rome would object, for men grow fond of their old ways and hate innovation. Perhaps anyway, in time, the name Caesar will come to mean more than 'King'. Who can tell? But I have been wondering whether I might not permit myself to be entitled 'King' beyond the boundaries of Italy, while retaining here in Rome simply the style of 'Perpetual Dictator'. It might be a way out of the dilemma. What do you think, Mouse?"

What I thought was that he had been paying no attention to my argument at all. Nevertheless, I replied:

"I do not see how that would solve anything, though of course I understand the Queen's argument comes naturally to her. But the point, Caesar, turns not on titles — and you are quite right in believing that everyone in Rome would resent the assumption of the name of 'King'; it turns on the relationship between you, and the immeasurable power you now wield, on the one hand, and the best means of revivifying the traditional institutions of the Republic on the other."

"You don't understand, Mouse. Perhaps you have been listening to Cicero. I revere Cicero myself, and am delighted to converse with him, so long as we confine the topics of conversation to literature and philosophy. Incidentally, he is doing useful work there, finding Latin equivalents for Greek terms which are necessary to the development of the subject. But when he talks of the Constitution, he is talking of something as mythical as the Minotaur. For all his brilliance, he doesn't understand that history is a living thing. When he speaks of the Constitution in terms of reverence, I admire his sentiments, but I know that he is talking of something which ceased to exist before he was born. What does he really believe in? He seems to think that our armies should be commanded by a noble officer — once it was Pompey, now perforce it is Caesar — while Rome, Italy and the pacified provinces are governed or administered by the Senate under the guidance of honourable, public-spirited conservatives prepared themselves to be guided by his golden oratory. He should know that such an assembly doesn't exist, even if it once did, and he should be modest enough to acknowledge that his own record is littered with gross blunders and misapprehensions."

He rose, and took a turn around the room. He still moved, even in his middle fifties, with that athleticism which his soldiers had so admired.

"You should realise, Mouse, for you have followed Caesar, that for the last two, even three generations, our Republic — that wonderful, resounding, moribund name — has proved itself incapable of performing the simplest and most necessary part of government: the maintenance of law and order here in Rome. During this period more Romans — including members of the nobility — have fallen in civil wars, been killed in street battles, or just assassinated — than in any foreign wars. That is not on account of my ambition, or Pompey's ambition, or my uncle Gaius Marius' ambition, or even the ambition of the loathsome Sulla; it has been because the old institutions are no longer answerable to circumstances…