ET TU Part Eight Final cortinam

 

I find it very telling that as late as 13 March, 44 B.C., just two days before the assassination of Julius Caesar, the driving force behind the plot, Gaius Cassius Longinus,  warned his fellow conspirators that, should Caesar uncover their plans, all of them would have to commit suicide. 

This is the advice of an ideological leader. But behind it is the spirit of a leader haunted by second thoughts. Simply put, Cassius knew there were too many who knew too much. Estimates of members in the plot range up to 40  And to galvanize the plotters and hold them to their purpose and silence, Cassius (above) did not appeal to their patriotism, but to their sense of class. 

A serf suffers humiliation every day. It is the staff of their lives. But an aristocrat, faced with loss of privilege, often prefers death to humiliation. This was the warning Cassius delivered to his nervous conspirators; we succeed or we lose status. It never seems to have occurred to the privileged forty, that victory could also be fatal.

The object of Cassius' hatred, Giaus Julius Caesar, intended on leaving Rome in three short days.  But even Caesar, at 56, must have been daunted at the prospect of campaigning in the Parthian desert, which 12 years before had consumed his old patron Crassus. 

Every year for the last five years opposition by the Senate aristocrats, first in Italy, then Spain, Greece, Egypt, Anatola, North Africa, and Spain again had forced Caesar into a military campaign. 

On this day, the Ides of March, which had been,  until this very year, New Years Day, Caesar intended on staying close to home. The historian Plutarch says he was not feeling well, and everyone agrees his wife was having nightmares  Whichever the excuse he used to dissuade his followers, it seems clear he wanted a little down down time. Someone had to get him out of the house, someone close, someone the untrusting Caesar would trust.

The obvious choice was Marcus Junius Brutus (above), the son of Cesar's long time mistress, and so often forgiven by Caesar that it was rumored he must be Caesar's illegitimate son.  But Brutus had a new wife at home, Porcia Catonis. They had been married just the year before, in 45 B.C. Porcia was the daughter of the aristocratic Senator Cato, who hated Cesar so much that when cornered in North Africa in 46 B.C., he had chosen suicide. It must have been her, aided by Crassus, who had stiffened Brutus back, and drove him to murder.  

But even Brutus was not willing to lure Caesar to his death. So that job fell to his cousin, and one of Caesar's most trusted generals,  Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus (above).

On the morning of 15 March, 44 B.C., Decimus was welcomed into Caesar's home, and extended an invitation to a gladiatorial display in one of the larger halls at Pompey's theater.  It was a subject certain to pique Caesar's interests. Before crossing the Rubicon, Caesar had been checking up on one of his own gladiatorial schools. He agreed to accompany Decimus to the theatre, but he had no intention of attending the Senate, even though they were meeting in the Curia Pompey, part of the same complex.

As the pair entered the complex through a side entrance, crowds pushed toward Caesar, forcing petitions into his hands, comments on government policy and requests for assistance. 

One of the messages handed to Caesar was from his lieutenant, Mark Anthony, warning of rumors concerning the Senate meeting today. Like the others notes handed to Caesar this morning, it would not be opened until it was too late.

Was there a man in the street warning Caesar to “Beware the Ides of March”? Probably, given the depth of religion in Rome, there were people wandering the streets prophesying doom about every dawn, and in particular about the dawn of an abandoned New Years Day.  But Caesar had become Dictator by ignoring such ominous warnings. Today the soothsayer was right. The previous ten thousand mornings, and for the next ten thousand mornings, he would be wrong again.

Once inside the walls of Pompey's Theatre, Caesar and Decimus, made their way along the walks toward the meeting room to inspect the gladiators. But as they passed the Curia they were waylaid by Decimus' older brother, Brutus (above). He urged Caesar to stop in the Curia,  to allow the Senate to wish him gods' speed on his invasion of Parthia. Exasperated, Caesar acquiesced, and the three men crossed the portico and entered the temporary Senate Chambers.

As he sat down, Caesar could not have missed the electric tension in the room. But what did it mean? Many were avoiding eye contact with him.  But even those Senators who were not in on the plot must have recognized that something was different. And when Senator Lucius Tillus Cimber thrust forward a petition asking that Caesar allow his brother to return from exile (above), Caesar pushed it away, into the hands of an aide. Whereupon Tillus grabbed the hem of Caesar's toga, and pulled. Caesar pulled away, demanding, “Be careful, there is no need to use force!” 

As Caesar turned to a guard to seek assistance, Senator and Tribume Publius Servilius Casca Longus, slashed forward, stabbing Caesar in the neck, just missing his throat.

Caesar grabbed Casca's arm and stabbed him with a pen. Startled, Casca screamed, “Help, brother!” As he tried to stand, Caesar was stabbed again. He now realized the aristocrats had surrounded him, and they all had knives. He tried to run, but fell, and was brutally stabbed over and over as he lay on the floor. The autopsy would reveal 23 wounds. So many knives were slashing that Brutus was stabbed by one of his allies.

Rather than being proud of their act, the aristocrats fled the theater as quickly as they could, escaping to their homes beyond the city walls.  And the abandoned body of Julius Caesar lay a crumpled heap on the floor of the Curia Pompey, his robes soaking in his own blood, for three hours. Finally three slaves worked up the courage to gather his corpse, load it on to a litter and carry him home to his wife. Thousands stood in shock to see the body pass on the street, one arm hanging off the litter, uncovered , bouncing to the steps of the nervous slaves.

The site of Caesar's murder did not become a shrine. It became a public toilet. Pompey's theatre remained in use for almost 1,500 years. Eventually the large latrine which had shared a wall with Curia was enlarged, and engulfed the spot on the floor where Caesar had bled out. Finally it was walled off and forgotten. And when the theatre, and the latrine, fell on hard times midway through the fifteen century A.D., the populace turned it into a quarry, scavenging building stones for their homes and shops. Even today, those who come to look upon the space where Giaus Julius Caesar died, will find only an arch, and an ancient concrete wall

Within two years most of the aristocratic assassins were dead. Cassius, Casca, Cimber, Brutus - all died by their own hands. A few of the forty were killed in battle, and a few even fought for their lives in the courts, and won. They were allowed to return to Rome and live in somewhat reduced privilege. 

Caesar's will left his fortune to his nephew Octavian (above), and eventually the boy overturned the rotten remains of the Republic and disposed of the tawdry trappings of its dead democracy, killed by the aristocrats. 

Octavian became Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. Retroactively, he made his uncle divine. The deceased Julius Caesar had become the thing the aristocrats said they feared the most, a god.

But the dream of a representatives government, giving the people a voice in their own governance, had been set back by 2,000 years not by Caesar, but by his murder.

- 30 -

ET TU Part Six Ultimus annus

 

I don't wish to overstate things, so speaking conservatively, the year 45 B.C. was one of the most revolutionary years in all of human history. To begin with it was a last year of the old Roman calendar, and the first year in which Julius Caesar was dictator of Rome for life. And, the last year of Julius Caesar’s life.

When Cesar conquered Gaul the minute had yet to be invented, the second was a useless abstraction, and the hour a generality. The Romans marked time using the moon. The new moon was the first day of every month, on which bills were to be paid, known as the accounting book day - in Latin, the Kalends. 

Five to eight days later, on the half moon, was the Nones, and every day between was numbered as 'so days before' the Nones.  Eight days after the Nones came the full moon, which was called the Ides, or the half. The Ides was followed by a count down to the next Kalends.

The biggest problem with this seemingly simple system was that the months were of equal length, and the year was only 355 days long.  Even two thousand years ago the earth took 365 days to orbit the sun, and those ten missing days caused season creep. This was supposed to be addressed by adding a 13^th month, the Mensis Intercalaris, every other year, usually in the dead of winter. 

But the decision of when and where to add the Mensis Intercalaris was left up to the Counsels, who were the politicians who were elected each year to directly run the capital.  And being politicians, most managed to justify stretching out their terms in office for that extra month. So, Rome was soon suffering from additional seasonal creep. By the time Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, on 12 January, 49 B.C., instead of that date happening in the winter, it was just the middle of autumn. Something ought to be done.

The story goes that late in 48 B.C., at a party in Alexandria, Cleopatra 7 introduced Julius Caesar to her court astronomer, Sosigenes (above, center).  And it was during their conversation that Sosigenes suggested the Romans dump the moon and start telling time by the sun. 

Well, Caesar agreed in theory, but he was first and foremost a politician.  And politicians don't like making people change things if it can be avoided.  But he filed Sosogenes' suggestion away for future reference. After defeating the Senate aristocratic forces in Asia Minor and  Tunisia in 46 B.C., Caesar finally turned his attention to fixing things in Rome.

First he swamped the Senate with 300 new Senators, including some from outside of Italy. This gave him the votes to do just about anything he wanted. What he wanted and got was being elected dictator for a year. This position had been created before, but Caesar immediately used his new majority to make the jump to Sosigenes's new calendar.  So, as of 1 January, 44 B.C., instead of an intercalaris month inserted every other year, the new Julian Calendar required only one extra day be inserted every fourth, or "leap" year,

But in order to bring the seasons into harmony before switching to the new "Julian Calendar" Caesar inserted two adjustment months; Intercalaris Prior and Intercalaris Posterior. Adding these 66 days meant that Caesar's year as dictator lasted 445 days, giving him the longest year in Roman history during which he convinced the Senate to vote him dictator perpetuo - dictator for life - which they did in February of 44 B.C.

For the poor little rich boys, like Senator Marcus Junius Brutus (above, left), and his brother-in-law Senator Gaius Cassius Longinus (above, right), the changes were not so happy. So many aristocratic Senators had been killed trying to stop Caesar, that the blue blood in the Senate was running thin. Then Caesar had diluted the Senate membership by 50%, by appointing a bunch of rubes and boobs - at least it seemed so to Brutus and Cassius. The  Senate chambers had now acquired all the unpleasant aspects of the audience at the Red Neck comedy tour.

And then, even worse, Caesar cut the welfare rolls by half. Those tossed off the public dole were offered the chance to live overseas in new cites, like New Carthage in Africa and New Corinth in Greece, or Seville in Spain. You would have thought the aristocrats would have cheered this development, but they had gotten so used to denouncing the angry mobs of poor people right outside their doors, that almost in reflex they denounced the expense of building all these new “welfare” cities. Caesar was doing this, they said, just to increase his popularity.

But what Caesar did with the banking system in 45 B.C. really ticked off the aristocrats. The country was drowning in debt, mostly owed to the aristocrats in the Senate, who were about the only people with money.  

In a typical example, Brutus had made a loan to the town of Salamis in Sicily, charging 48% interest. The town could never pay that off. But in 45 B.C. the dictator Caesar had wiped out all interest due on any principle already paid. With that one decree, one quarter of the amount owed by the 99% of the population to the top 1% was wiped out. The economy took a big breath of relief. But the 1% were outraged. Caesar was a tyrant, they said. He wanted to be King, they said.

Caesar also rebuilt the Roman forum, including starting a new Senate House to replace the one burned down in 50 B.C. Nearby he built a new market that spurred business investment and profit in the city. He cleared out the vast wooden Subura slums and rebuilt them in cement, which put an end to the fires which regularly threatened to burn down the entire town. 

Caesar rebuilt the port of Ostia (above) into a vast grain store house, to stabilize the price of bread in Rome. This ticked off the aristocrats who had made money manipulating the price of wheat. 

He set term limits for Roman governors, and established new rules to reduce graft in the provinces. This ticked off the aristocrats who had made profited from that graft. 

He granted Roman citizenship to millions in Italy, Spain and North Africa, Illyricum, which made Rome something they would all fight for.  But that also gave these people rights and protections under the law against rapacious money lenders – also known as the aristocrats in the Senate. Caesar the tyrant not only wanted to be King, said the aristocrats,  he wanted to be made a god.

And then Caesar did the one thing which sealed his fate.  Cassisus (above), was expecting to be nominated for Praetor, or mayor of Rome, for 44 B.C.. Instead, Caesar nominated Brutus again. Cassisus was insulted and frightened. His veiled hatred of Caesar was well know in the Senate chambers, and now he must have suspected that Caesar knew as well. And Cassius knew what he would do if he were in Caesar's position.

Cassius knew if he struck back at Caesar by himself, he would have little support. Even his brother-in-law Brutus (above, left)) knew how much he hated and feared Caesar. But Cassius also knew Brutus could be led to act.  So Cassius took a coin out of his purse.

The design of Roman coins was determined by three men,  called the “tresviri monetales”, the 'three money men' (above)  who decided what face or images would be carved into the molds used for the aureus (gold), denarius (silver) and the "as" (copper) coins used in every transaction from buying political office in Judea to a loaf of bread in Gaul. One denarius was roughly the equivalent of fifteen U.S. Dollars, and traditionally they carried the images of gods and demigods representing traits the politicians wanted to be seen as embodying.

But in February of 44 B.C. a new denarius was released, bearing the face of Julius Caesar (above). It was the first coin ever created carrying the head of a living Roman. The coins were being stockpiled for Caesar's coming attack on Parthia. It had been almost ten years since Caesar's mentor and ally, Crassus, had been killed on the field of Carrhae. And it had been his death that destroyed the balance of power in Rome and brought on the civil war. 

It was common knowledge that Caesar was to leave Rome in a few short weeks to avenge Crassus' death by invading Parthia (above). And the coins bearing his face, would remind the local “barbarians” of the images of Alexander the Great who had swept aside the Persian Empire, three hundred years before. The coins were a bit of political-economic theater, and their intended audience was in Parthia, where the coins were going to be distributed.

But, to a Roman audience, such coins spoke of arrogance and presumption. Worse, it spoke of stupidity.

No Roman politician would dare to release such coins and then leave town.  Only a fool or a child would not realize Caesar's intended use for these coins was in Parthia. But remember,  Cassius target audience was Brutus, who had been described as having the mind of a man but the emotions of a child.

When Cassius pressed one of Cesar's new coins into Brutus' palm, his argument for the elimination of Caesar was easy to make. He just had to avoid giving Brutus time to think things through.

- 30 -

ET TU Part Five, Victor tolle omnia

 

I wish I could have seen at least one of the parades in Rome during the first week of September, 46 B.C..E. The entire magnificent spectacle lasted four days.

Each morning the units formed up on property once owned by the last King of Rome - renamed the Campus Mirtius, or the Field of Mars (above, top left). 

There were cohorts of unarmed veterans, battalions of slaves, wagons piled high with booty and treasures, and bizarre animals from distant conquered lands. Four large parades were to exalt just one man, Julius Caesar.  

Each day, when all was ready,  Caesar, dressed in his Senatorial robe (called in Latin "a candidus") edged in divine purple and with a laurel wreath atop his balding head, would climb into his chariot, and enter the usually bared Gate of Triumph.  Just inside the city walls Caesar would symbolically surrender his command to representatives of the Roman Senate and the Urban Praetir – the mayor. But if he bothered to notice each day, Caesar would have seen increasing tension on the face of one man in particular, the Praetor and Senator, Marcus Junius Brutus.

The politician Cicero described his contemporary Marcus Junius Brutus as having “the courage of a man but the brains of a child”. You see, Brutus suffered from daddy issues. His father had been a first rate lawyer and a second rate politician.

In 78 B.C.E. Brutus the elder had gotten involved with the Catiline Conspiracy (above). How much Brutus the elder actually knew of the murky plot is debatable, but he ended up in the Cisalpine city of Mutina (modern Modena), besieged by an army loyal to the Senate. The elder Brutus worked out a deal to surrender the town and switch sides. 

But the Senate army commander, Pompey the Great, decided he couldn't trust the elder Brutus, and had him executed (above). Thirty years later Brutus the Younger took up to the sword to fight for the Senate and for his idol, Pompey - the man who had orphaned him.

The senators now led the Triumph along the Sacred Way, between cheering crowds. Behind them came the trumpeters, followed by the carts of booty, the slaves, and two white sacrificial bulls. Then came the stacks of captured arms, and then the important prisoners, staggering in their chains.

 And only then came Caesar, under a shower of flower petals. He was over 50 now, but still handsome to Roman eyes. Behind him came men from his legions, singing obscene soldier songs, mostly about their commander.

The widow of Brutus the Elder had become the mistress of the young Julius Caesar. Their affair was so well known in Rome that it was rumored Caesar was the younger Brutus' real father. It was an absurd claim. The year Brutus was born, Caesar was just 15. Still, the rumors refused to die, and even gained popularity after Pompey's defeat at Physallus in 48 B.C., when Caesar might have executed Brutus but saved him instead, even first making him governor of TansAlpine Gaul and later supporting him for Praetor of Rome. 

Now, Caesar's policy of magnanimity was an obvious attempt to make his one-time enemies beholden to him. But in the case of Brutus, Caesar was also trying to avoiding hurting his old girlfriend. I get the feeling this is what passed for love with Caesar, dispensing favors as a substitute for affection and intimacy.  And if you were expecting more from the great man, you were certain to be disappointed. Open affection was not Caesar's style.  Besides, after Pompey's death, he was pretty busy.

Once each Triumphant parade had reached the Capitoline Hill, Caesar climbed the steps to the Temple of Jupiter. Before entering he removed his laurel wreath as a sign of humility. Then, inside, he watched the two while bulls sacrificed, and their blood was smeared on his face. 

Then he handed over his prisoners, such as Leader of the Gauls, Vercongetroix (above).  In fact the big Gaul who had resisted Caesar for over a year, had spent the last five years held a few hundred yards away, in the prison atop Tullianum Rock. 

After being displayed in the parade he was lowered back into the dungeon, and tied to a post. A strung bow was slipped over his head and twisted until he was slowly strangled to death. Not all political prisoners were sacrificed during Caesar's four triumphs. On day two Celepatra 7's younger sister, Arsinoe 4, was spared, but sent to a temple in Greece, which she was not permitted to leave for the rest of her life.

After a fertile diversion with Cleo, on 23 June, 47 B.C., Caesar had set off on a forced march, reminiscent of his quick invasion of Spain two years earlier. Caesar had crossed the Sinai, marched through Judea and Syria, and the eastern half of modern day Turkey, covering 800 miles in just 47days. 

On 2 August  at Zile, Caesar then crushed an army under the the rebellious King Pharnaces, and captured his Roman Senate advisor, Gaius Cassius Longinus. So smashing was his victory, that Caesar's message informing the Senate was reduced to only three words - “veni, vidi, vici”. The translation reads, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” But in this case, Caesar proved to be slightly optimistic.

His mistake was in underestimating Cassius (above), a smart and feisty aristocrat. Cassius had warned against the invasion of Parthia back in 53 B.C. The few legionnaires who survived the debacle of Carrhea, were saved because Cassius lead them to safety.

After his own capture in 47 B.C., Caesar offered Cassius a command in the expedition to destroy the last of the Senates' forces in Tunisia. But Cassius said no. Almost any other Roman politician would have killed Cassius for that refusal. But again, Caesar was being magnanimous. He had then decided to risk leaving this hot head unattended, and loose in Rome.

Back in his  Triumpate , and leaving the Temple of Jupiter, Caesar now stood at the top of the steps while Marc Anthony held the laurel wreath over his head. The crowd cheered this ritual, meant to display the hero's rejection of an offer of Kingship. But it seemed to those with suspicious minds that on each of the four days, Caesar had waited a little longer before rejecting the laurel wreath. Brutus wasn't certain he noticed such reluctance on Caesar's part. But his brother-in-law Cassius, assured Brutus that he had indeed seen it.

From the Capitaline Hill, marching along the Sacred Way, the Triumpate parade led to the Circus Flaminius, an open space adjacent to the Tiber River and Mars' Field. Here the city held chariot races, and public meetings. Now long tables were set for a banquet, where thousands of average Roman citizens could feast on exotic foods from the newly conquered lands.

But this had been a civil war, Roman had killed Roman, and other than the first days triumph to celebrate Caesar's conquest of Gaul (50 B.C.), the lands Caesar had recently conquered had already been Roman lands. There were many within the Senate who did not feel Caesar should have been granted those three days of triumph for his victories over Egypt (48 B.C.), over King Pharnaces (47 B.C.) and the Senate Armies in North Africa and Spain (46 B.C.)

But the promise of parades and free meals, and the hundreds of new Senators Caesar had appointed, had swayed the Senate to approve the unprecedented four Triumphs. As the sun set on the final Triumph, as the last tipsy guest staggered off to the vomitorium, Julius Caesar was at the pinnacle of his power.

But of all men, Caesar was the most likely to have known, there was nowhere left to go from here but down. 

- 30 -