It was as if the air was suddenly sucked out of the room, which I suppose it was in a sense, as 56 pairs of lungs drew in a breath simultaneously. There was just a heartbeat of utter silence before total chaos broke out as men shouted in despair, cursed the gods, or just let out an unintelligible moan. Shaking their fists, turning to each other, yelling out what they would do to the assassins, asking me for details, for several moments I let the grief and anger wash over all of us as each man dealt with the news that the father of the Legion had been struck down in their own way. Finally, I held up my hand for silence, but I was universally ignored.
Drawing a deep breath, I roared at the top of my lungs. “Tacete!”
For the first and only time, I was not instantly obeyed, and it was only the circumstances that kept me from lashing out at the nearest man who was still baying for the killers’ blood.
Still, I was very angry, and made no attempt to hide it. “I said shut up now, you bastards! The next man to speak I'll flay and use his ball sac as my coin purse!”
That shut them up, as their looks of contrition and anguish extinguished the flames of my ire immediately.
These men were heartbroken, just as I was, and I had to let them come to terms with what had happened. “Brothers,” I said with what I hoped was a sympathetic tone. “I know that you're hurting, as I am. You all know how much Caesar has favored me, how much I owe to him, and now to his memory. But we all have to be strong now, more than at any other time. The men are young and raw, and for most of them, the name of Caesar has been in their ears since they were born. They grew up on our exploits in Gaul, with Caesar at our head. Now this one constant fact of Rome is no more, and they'll be confused and frightened about what this means.”
“What does this mean?” someone asked, and I felt the pressure of 59 pairs of eyes looking at me for the answer.
“It's too early to know,” I said as honestly as I could. “The dispatch General Pollio received didn't give any kind of instructions, and it was apparently sent just thirds of a watch after the….event. As of this moment, I don't know what our orders are, but I plan on finding out.”
It was not much, yet it was the best I could do for the moment, and I was relieved to see that the men seemed to accept that. “I've decided that rather than call an assembly and tell the men all at once, that I'm going to have you tell each of your Centuries. I think that this is the best way to handle it because I don’t want a scene of mass hysterics.”
As I expected, this did not go down well, but I was not going to be swayed. With that, I sent the men back to their Century areas, then sat down with Diocles and an amphora of wine, preparing ourselves for the coming uproar.
The next few days passed in a blur, as I found myself going almost every third of a watch to the praetorium to find out from Pollio the latest developments. Dispatch riders came in a steady stream, not all of them from Rome, but from other parts of the Republic as the men who had belonged to Caesar sent missives back and forth, feeling each other out while trying to gather more information. First, we heard that Brutus and the other faithless bastards had been hailed as saviors of the Republic, that the people were acclaiming them as heroes, something I did not buy into for a moment, and it turned out that I was right. In fact, the reaction of the people was quite the opposite, as Brutus and Cassius in particular were now hiding from the masses. The people of the Head Count, my people, wanted to skin them alive and nail their hides to the Senate door, so the two of them were taking refuge in the Capitol. A couple of days after we heard this, word came that the two of them had ventured down to the Forum to mount the Rostra to give speeches justifying their actions, the reaction obviously not what they were expecting. The people did not tear them asunder, instead just standing there in complete and total silence. I can only imagine how unnerving that must have been, for either of the assassins or for the people watching. The eyes and attention of the people of all classes now turned to Marcus Antonius, waiting to see what he would do. When he took no actions against the assassins, I requested an audience with Pollio to get his opinion on what Antonius was thinking, because his inaction infuriated me, as well as the rest of the men. To us, it was clear-cut; no matter what I might say publicly, I viewed Caesar’s death as nothing but murder, and for Antonius to sit by doing nothing to his assassins made no sense to any of us in uniform.
Clearly, I was not the only one missing my rest. Seeing Pollio, his eyes red from fatigue and sleepless nights, I recognized that the man was suffering from all this upheaval, as much if not more than we were. He was still seated behind his desk, and as it had become my habit, I did not wait for him to give permission, throwing myself into the chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“I believe Marcus Antonius is just being prudent,” he told me, when I asked him about it.
“Prudent?” I asked incredulously, forgetting that Pollio was my superior for a moment as I let out a string of curses. Fortunately, Pollio was not the sort of officer who punished men for lapses like mine, particularly under the circumstances. “Prudent,” I repeated. “What’s prudent about letting the men who killed Caesar go unpunished? If anything, it would seem to me to be prudent for him to take action against them, since he was Caesar’s man just as much as you or I.”
I am not sure what I was expecting, but it was not the snorting laugh that Pollio gave. “Antonius is nobody’s man but his own,” Pollio said acidly, and I could see that he had no love for the man, no matter how popular he had been with the troops. “And while I don't care for the man personally, in this I agree with him. His position is too tenuous for him to take any drastic action against Brutus, Cassius, and the rest of them. And make no mistake,” at this he leaned forward, pointing at me for emphasis, “it’s Brutus and Cassius that matter the most, along with Decimus Brutus. And Trebonius,” he sighed.
I found myself sitting upright, shocked to my core. “Trebonius,” I gasped.
I had known about Decimus Brutus, which was something of a shock, but nothing like this. Gaius Trebonius had been one of Caesar’s most loyal lieutenants, benefitting greatly from Caesar’s patronage and support.
Pollio nodded wearily. “He didn't wield a knife, that much is true. But he kept Antonius tied up on some nonsense outside while the others did the deed. Yes,” he sighed. “I'm afraid that Trebonius was in it up to his eyebrows. So you see,” he continued, “that's another reason why Antonius can't just order the execution of any of the assassins, who by the way, are calling themselves The Liberators.” Pollio laughed at this, though there was no humor in it. “The Liberators. What a joke. What do they think they've liberated us from? The Republic is dead as Caesar, it’s never going to come back.”
I must admit that his last remark disturbed me; like most Romans of my class, I could not really explain exactly what the Republic was, I just knew that it had been in existence for hundreds of years.
I also believed that it was the best form of government in history, though I could no more explain why this was so than I could sprout wings. “You think the Republic is finished?” I asked cautiously.
Pollio gave me a sharp look, clearly trying to determine if I had some ulterior motive. Such were the times that we were all looking at each other out of the corner of our eyes, wondering exactly what was going on in each other's heads.
Apparently, Pollio discerned that I was sincere. “Yes, Pullus, I do. The fact is that it was dead before Caesar ever took power, but the boni,” he spat the term that the enemies of Caesar had claimed as their own, long before his assassination, “refused to accept that fact. Caesar’s death doesn’t change the reality, but I suspect that our Brutus and Cassius are only now coming to terms with that fact. And the jug is broken now; Caesar is dead, and nothing will bring him back.”