Plancus’s proposal won a large majority of votes. Everyone was terrified at the prospect of a new civil war. Antony thus took the floor and began to speak.
‘Conscript fathers! I thank you for having recognized my efforts and my commitment. I myself voted in favour of your request that amnesty be granted to Brutus, Cassius, Trebonius and their companions. But I cannot accept that Caesar be buried at night and in secret, as if he were a criminal. He did make mistakes, although his hand was forced at times. He sought to solve Rome’s problems through negotiations and dialogue on innumerable occasions and he did all he could to prevent Roman blood from being spilled.’
A burst of indignant protest rose from the group that supported Brutus, Cassius and Cicero, and Antony swiftly changed his tactics.
‘If you don’t want to believe this, how can you not believe in what the man accomplished? He expanded the borders of the Roman Empire all the way to the waves of the Ocean. He subjugated the Celts and Germans, and he dared to raise the Eagle on ground never before trodden by Roman feet: the remote land of Britannia. He defeated Pharnaces and added the kingdom of Pontus to our dominions. He approved a great number of laws to help and sustain the populace. He filled our coffers with immense treasures pillaged in the territories he conquered. He promulgated measures to defend the provinces but also to punish local governors who were incapable or corrupt. Do you believe that the tomb of the man who will be forever remembered for having carried out such glorious enterprises should be hidden in some obscure site, his funeral kept a secret?
‘No, conscript fathers! You must grant me this. Allow me to celebrate his funeral and to read his will in public. His testament, at least, will help us to understand if we have acted justly or if the last honours I wish to attribute to him are undeserved.’
Upon hearing these words, Cicero hissed at Cassius, ‘What did I tell you? If you allow him to celebrate Caesar’s funeral and read his will, your undertaking will have been in vain! You must absolutely prevent him from doing so.’
But Brutus disagreed. As Antony continued with his fervent plea, he replied, ‘No, you’re wrong, Marcus Tullius. Antony has always been a man of his word. He left his sons in our hands, he dispersed the hostile crowd that had formed on the Capitol and he voted in favour of our amnesty. We are men of honour and we must behave as such. Antony is brave and valiant. We must not turn him into our enemy. We shall convince him to join us, in order to restore the authority of the republic and the liberty of the Roman people. Trust me. If he were not well meaning, he would already have unleashed the legion camped outside the walls on us. It would have been easy for him to do away with us in no time. But he didn’t. All he’s asking for is a funeral and we have to allow it.’
Brutus was adamant, and if Brutus voted in favour of the motion, the others could not vote against it.
Cicero, outraged and impotent, snapped at Brutus, ‘You will see! This will be no ordinary funeral!’
But the proposal was approved and the session ended.
Romae, a.d. XVII Kal. Apr.-a.d. XIV Kal. Apr.
Rome, 16–19 March
Antony had Caesar’s body transported to the Campus Martius, where it lay on an ivory bier draped in purple and gold, near the tomb of his daughter Julia, born of his second wife, Cornelia. Behind the bier he had raised a shrine in gilded wood that perfectly reproduced the Temple of Venus Genetrix. Inside the shrine he hung the robes that Caesar had been wearing on the Ides of March, arranged so that the dagger slashes and the bloodstains were in plain view for all to see.
He had the shrine surrounded by a maniple of surly legionaries of the Ninth in full combat order, so that no one dared to approach.
The procession of people bringing gifts to be burned on his funeral pyre began. A long, long line of men and women of the Roman populace, of veterans, of friends. There were even some senators and knights. Some threw in precious objects, others a simple, early-spring flower. Many wept, others regarded in silence the lifeless body of the greatest Roman ever to have lived.
The body lay in state for three days and then the funeral began. The coffin was hoisted on to the shoulders of the magistrates in office and escorted by hundreds of legionaries in parade dress, led by officers wearing their red cloaks and crested helmets, to the sound of bugles and trumpets, and to the sombre, rhythmic beating of drums. Two soldiers at the fore held up the hanger with Caesar’s bloody tunic as a kind of trophy. His wife, Calpurnia, trailed behind, weeping, helped along by her maidservants.
Tension mounted with every step, reaching a peak when a theatrical machine was drawn up alongside the coffin. Gears were set in motion and a likeness of Caesar’s naked body was raised up high: a wax statue with twenty-three wounds reproduced in gory detail, dripping with a vermilion stain that looked just like blood. In this way, even those who had not seen his corpse could witness the devastation wreaked on Caesar’s body.
In the Forum, in a clearing quite close to the Domus Publica, wood had been piled for the pyre. The bier was placed upon it. A leaden silence fell on the crowded square.
An actor recited the verses of a great poet:
I spared their lives
So they could kill me!
This gave rise to an explosion of indignant shouting that grew even louder when a crier read out the words of the senatus consultumin which the senators had sworn to defend Caesar with their own lives. Curses and insults rang from every corner of the square.
Then two centurions appeared, armed to the teeth: Publius Sextius, known as ‘the Cane’, and Silius Salvidienus. Each held a torch and took up position beside the pyre.
Antony mounted the Rostra and raised a hand to request silence from the already agitated crowd, which was seething with violent emotions that threatened to spill over at any moment.
Brutus, hidden at the far end of the square, behind the trees of the Iuturna fountain, could see even at this distance the grotesque wax image of Caesar stabbed. He could hear in his mind the words that Caesar had said to him with his last breath, as Brutus had thrust his dagger into Caesar’s groin. ‘Even you. .’
He instantly understood what Cicero had meant to say at the session at the Temple of Tellus. All was lost. Nothing could stop a new, bloody civil war from breaking out.
All at once, in the sudden, mortal silence, Antony’s voice rang out.
‘Friends, Romans, countrymen! I have come to bury Caesar!’
Epilogue
Decius Scaurus and his companions, thwarted by the fury of Publius Sextius and deprived of the leadership of Mustela, had continued on their mission, but they never succeeded in closing in on the centurion, who had escaped down the parallel paths of the Apennines. Too late, however, for meeting his appointment with destiny.
Three days later they found the body of their commander, Sergius Quintilianus, at the side of the Via Cassia. His life had ended in combat.
They paid their last respects to him, simply, then burned his body on a pyre of woody vines. They threw their weapons into the fire as a final homage to his memory.
They brought his ashes back to the villa and buried them together with those of his son, at the foot of an old cypress, so they could rest, finally united, in the kingdom of shadows.