DAGGERS IN THE SENATE
A Short Story
by
Lewis B. Smith
How different the story of Rome might
have been, had Marcus Junius Severus not been bored! He had served his time in the legions during
the most epic span of years in Roman history, fighting under Gaius Julius
Caesar throughout the Gallic Wars, and then following him across the Rubicon
and into the chaos of the showdown with Pompey and the Senate. His legion, the Thirteenth, had sailed to
Greece with Caesar pursuing Pompey and the relentless band of Senators that had
provoked the great general to war in the first place. Severus had been awarded the Civic Crown at
the Battle of Pharsalus for saving the life of a military tribune and
personally slaying a dozen of Pompey’s legionaries – a rough battle, Pharsalus,
he reflected later. Romans killing
Romans was an ugly business, but Marcus knew that Caesar had done all he could
to reach a compromise with the Senate before he was forced to march on Rome to
save himself from being stripped of his command, unjustly prosecuted, and exiled.
Promoted to Primipilus Centurion for
his valor and level head, Marcus had followed Caesar with seven cohorts to
Egypt and taken part in the civil war there that had ended with the child-king
Ptolemy XII floating face down in the Nile and his 17 year old sister,
Cleopatra, crowned as Pharaoh and Queen – and pregnant with Caesar’s
child. Severus grew sick of the heat and
boredom of Egypt while Caesar took a much-needed respite after a decade of
constant warfare, so he requested his discharge and received a lovely farm in
Campania as a reward for his service.
But farming was mind-numbingly dull
after so many years under the eagles, and Severus had no wife to keep him bound
to the small villa that he’d built on his land.
After several months, he left the farm under the care of a loyal
freedman and went to Rome to see what excitement he could find. There he’d encountered Caesar’s cousin Marcus
Antonius, whom he’d befriended in Gaul. The
legate remembered Severus instantly and invited him to dinner that
evening. Antony was now Rome’s Master of
Horse – second in command to Caesar, the Dictator of the Republic – and Marcus
looked forward to seeing how the upper crust lived.
Antony’s dinner parties were more
devoted to partying than to dinner, but Marcus found himself enjoying the
grotesque antics of the dwarfs that juggled and played the lute as beautiful women
danced for the entertainment of Antony and his friends. The great general spent
most of his time talking with his other, more highbrow guests, but after an
hour or so, Marc Antony wandered over to Severus, more than halfway drunk.
“Tell me, Centurion Marcus Severus,
what brings a fighting man of your valor to Rome?” he said. “Not that you haven’t earned your retirement,
but Caesar has enemies yet to be vanquished!”
“One of those bloody Egyptians rammed
a spear through my thigh, sir,” he said.
“It healed up all right, but it got me doing a spot of thinking. I’ve been a soldier for nigh on twenty years
– I enlisted at sixteen and I’ll be thirty-five come the Ides of
Sextilius. Caesar was visiting some of
us who’d been wounded, after the battle was over and young Ptolemy drowned in
the Nile. He asked me if I wanted to
return to my legion or go home to Italia with a fat purse and a nice plot of
farmland for my years of loyal service.
I hate Egypt, sir! The flies, the
sand, the Gypo’s themselves – nasty place, but Caesar was as happy as
sixteen-year-old in a brothel there, him and that Queen Cleopatra. It seemed to me that he might not be budging
for a while, and frankly, the offer was too good to refuse.”
“Cleopatra does seem to have some
strange hold on him,” Antony mused.
“From what I hear, she is not even that beautiful! Caesar is not like most men, though, as you
well know. Now that she’s popped out his
son, I imagine he will be heading back to Rome soon enough.”
“I hope so,” said Severus, taking
another swig of wine. Antony served only
the finest vintages, and for a former ranker in the legions this was a rare
chance to enjoy the best table in Rome.
“Things are more interesting when Caesar is around. I have never known another human being with
his knack for making things happen!”
“There has never been another human
being like him,” Antony said. “I’m his
cousin, but even in our family, Caesar stands alone. Those who oppose him inevitably get ground to
powder. Poor old Pompey never stood a
chance, and with him gone, it’s just a matter of time before Cato, Labienus,
and all the rest meet a similar fate.”
“I don’t doubt you’re right!” Severus
said. “Nowadays I regret leaving the
legions, but you know, making war is a young man’s game. I just go tused to being close to things that
mattered. It’s hard to get worked up
about crops and spring lambs when you were once part of an army that made the world
tremble!”
“Like being close to the center of
power, do you?” Antony said, stifling a belch.
“Well, why don’t you go down to the lictor’s college? They are always looking for stout-hearted
fellows with strong arms and military experience, and you’d definitely be in
the thick of things, escorting Praetors, Consuls, and perhaps even me or Caesar
all about Rome and Italia.”
“That might be just the thing,”
Severus said. “Thank you for the idea!”
“Let me write you a letter of
introduction to the Chief Lictor,” Antony said as one of the dancers approached.
“Come by tomorrow morning and pick it up before you go to the collegium. Now, let me introduce you to this charming
Greek nymph – her name is Daphne!”
Over two years had passed since that wine-fogged
conversation, and Marcus Severus was now a senior lictor, spending nine months of
the year on duty in Rome and three on his farm in Campania. He’d gotten on so well with Daphne, the slave
Antony introduced him to that night, that he’d purchased her, freed her, and
married her. She proved to be a delightful spouse, attentive when he was home
on the farm and faithful when he was away on duty. Their first child had been born just before
Marcus returned to Rome this last time, and the lictor had named him Gaius,
after Caesar.
The great general himself had returned
to Rome not long after Marcus donned the white robes of a lictor, and Caesar,
with his uncanny memory, recognized him immediately.
“From centurion to lictor?” Caesar
said with a laugh. “What happened to
Marcus Junius Severus, the farmer?”
“Well, he found the farm runs just
fine without him,” Severus said. “And
serving under you got me accustomed to being in the center of action, Caesar!”
“Well, if that’s what you want, then I
can think of no one I’d prefer to carry my fasces,” Caesar said. “Consider yourself my chief lictor from this
day forward!”
Severus found that he was once more in
the center of events during the next year.
Caesar’s gift for making things happened was not confined to the
battlefield – during his first year as Dictator, he reformed Rome’s land laws,
enlarged the Senate, added two months to the calendar, created public works
projects, instituted new luxury taxes, and wrote sweeping reforms of Rome’s
legal system to insure trials that were swifter, fairer, and less likely to be
corrupted by bribes. The Chief Lictor
watched in dizzied wonder as Caesar strode around Rome, trailed by hundreds of
clients, dictating letters to four secretaries at once, listening to his
clients plead their causes, and still finding time to greet every person who
craved his attention by name. How could one mind flow in so many directions at
once? It was a mystery to Severus, who
had always considered himself an intelligent man. But his modest talents seemed like a candle
beside the lighthouse of Alexandria when he weighed his mind against Caesar’s.
Marcus could tell that the pinnacle on
which Caesar now stood had been achieved at great cost. The Dictator was
exhausted, both physically and emotionally.
The Caesar he fought beside in Gaul was fifteen pounds heavier than the
togate figure who now presided over the Senate’s meetings, and the lines of
Caesar’s face had been pared down by years of care and illness and
conflict. Not that Caesar wasn’t still
as strong as an ox, and more fit than any man of fifty-six had a right to be – but the endless struggles
with his foes in the Senate had taken a toll that went beyond simple fatigue. This Caesar was harder and more ruthless, yet
sadder and more careworn than the man Marcus remembered. The flame of his spirit still burned strong,
but Marcus could tell that Caesar was sick of his endless struggle to make
other men see that Caesar’s way really was the best way for Rome.
While his most obdurate foes – Cato,
Bibulus, Pompey, and Labienus – were all dead now, Caesar still had enemies in
the Senate. Many of them were men he had
pardoned for fighting against him, and then rewarded with the offices and
titles they now held. Others were legates
and tribunes who had fought beside him in Gaul and Greece but now seemed fed up
with living in his shadow. Unlike the scathing
public condemnations that Cato had delighted in, these men opposed Caesar by
making obsequious gestures designed to humiliate him, trying to convince the
people of Rome that Caesar wanted to make himself their king. Caesar scoffed at the very idea, and the
repeated gestures of homage infuriated him, but there was little he could do
when they kept on making them.
“I tell you, Severus,” he said one
afternoon after he had forced the Senate to remove a silver plaque from one of
his statues referring to him as ‘God Made Manifest’, “I am
looking forward to leaving this accursed city and invading the Parthian
Empire. Give me a good honest battle any
day over these creeping little men who praise me publicly while scheming to smear
my name in the eyes of the people!”
“The common folk know you, Caesar,”
Marcus Severus replied. “I think they
understand you better than any of the high and mighty, except maybe your cousin
Lucius and a few others.”
“The common folk love me because I understand
what they need,” said Caesar. “I make
sure their bellies are full and their neighborhoods are as safe as Roman law
can make them. I give them the chance to
become landowners and to better themselves.
I do them the courtesy of treating them like members of the gens
humana instead of turning up my nose at them, as if they were children of a
lesser god.”
“Exactly, sir,” said Severus. “You’ve never once made me feel smaller for talking
to you, whereas so many of those patricians and wealthy plebs look at me like
I’m a shit stain on their favorite sandal if I dare to speak to them!”
“You’re a good, perceptive man, Marcus
Severus,” said Caesar. “I would rather
have a dozen like you in the Senate than one more whining, entitled patrician
imbecile like Tiberius Nero, no matter how blue his blood may be!”
“I would have no idea how to conduct
myself as a Senator, sir,” said Severus, whose Civic Crown technically entitled
him to join that body. “I’m happy to be
your Chief Lictor – to stand by and watch you make fools of them all, and to protect
you from any who would do you harm!”
Caesar frowned. They were standing in the atrium of his home,
the domus publicus that was given to Rome’s Pontifex Maximus as his
official residence, and the Dictator shrugged out of his toga and prepared to
change into a more relaxed robe for the dinner he was hosting in a few hours.
“That reminds me, Marcus,” he
said. “I hate to do this, but I am
dismissing my escort of lictors tomorrow. A certain faction in the Senate keeps trying
to portray me as a would-be monarch, and my strutting around Rome with two
dozen lictors in escort is giving them ammunition to use against me.”
“I don’t like that one bit, Caesar,”
Marcus said. “There are men in the
Senate who would gladly kill you, and you walking around without an escort is
pretty much inviting any assassin in Rome to slip a dagger between your ribs.”
“They are little men,” said
Caesar. “I doubt there’s more than one
or two in their number who have the stones to try such a thing. Besides, you’ve escorted me around Rome for
the better part of a year now. Do you
ever see me without a small army of clients dogging my steps? Anyone who tries to harm me would have all of
them to contend with. I only have a few
weeks left in Rome before I march eastward again. Are you sure you don’t want to join me,
Marcus, as I go to avenge poor old Crassus?
The Parthian Empire will be a worthy foe, and the treasures I strip from
them will make every centurion and legate who fights with me a rich man for
life!”
“You know, Caesar, I just might do it!”
he said. “May I think on it for a
bit? I am a married man and a landowner
now – I have more to lose than I did when I joined the Thirteenth as a mere stripling.”
Caesar clapped him on the shoulder,
and Marcus marveled at the physical strength concealed in that wiry frame. “Don’t think too long, my friend!” he
exclaimed. “The last Senate meeting I
attend will be on the Ides of March, and then I am headed to Brundisium, and
thence to join my legions in Greece.”
“You shall have my answer before
then,” Severus told him. “I thank you
for your kind invitation. Shall I see
you in the morning, sir?”
“Yes,” Caesar replied. “Be here an hour after sunrise. You and your lictors will escort me to the
Pompey’s curia, where I will announce that I am dispensing with your
services and pay you out. I hate to make
such an ostentatious gesture of it, but public accusations require a public
response.”
After being paid out and dismissed the
next day, Severus informed the college of lictors he would be absent from Rome
for a few weeks, and then headed back to his farm. After cuddling his son, who was now walking
and talking nonstop, Marcus sent the child off with a maidservant and enjoyed a
proper greeting from Daphne. Later, as
they lay side by side watching the sunset through their window, he broached the
subject of taking part in the Parthian war.
Daphne was a considerate wife and a surprisingly deep thinker, a fact
which delighted Severus as much if not more than her physical charms and warm
heart.
“I dread the thought of your being gone
for years,” she said, “and I know such a campaign will not be over
quickly. But I also realize what a
magnificent opportunity it is for you!
Caesar takes good care of his men, and you stand high in his favor. Therefore, I say go if you think it best, my
love. I would ask only one thing in
return for my blessing: could you not leave me with another child on the
way? I do love being a mother, and
little Gaius is growing so fast!”
“Well, I cannot promise to make
another child with you, but I will certainly try while I am here!” he said with
a laugh and pulled her close. “We have
more than enough money to feed and clothe a houseful of little ones, thanks to
Caesar’s generosity!”
After five joyful weeks with his wife,
Severus dug out his old military uniform and put it on, finding that his cuirass
was a little more snug than it had been when he doffed it three years ago. It was already the Nones of March, and Caesar
would be leaving for Brundisium in ten days, after the Ides. Kissing his wife a fond farewell, Marcus
Severus saddled his horse and rode back to Rome, spending one night in a seedy
roadside tavern along the way.
Caesar was busier than ever when
Marcus found him, striding through Rome with an armful of scrolls, dictating to
two secretaries at once, and trailed by a mob of clients. Despite his frenetic pace, though, the
Dictator still had that gift of making you feel as if you were the only person
on earth whose opinion mattered when you were speaking to him. Caesar’s eyes lit up when he saw Severus
approaching in uniform.
“Centurion Severus!” he said. “I was hoping you would decide to march east
with us! I have need of your
experience. There’s a newly recruited
legion outside the pomerium, the 19th, and their primipilus
centurion, Titus Flavius, broke his leg yesterday in a fall from his
horse. He won’t be up and about for
several weeks, and I need someone to whip those lads into shape. Will you take them on and put them through
their paces?”
“Gladly, Caesar,” he said. “I’ll train with them – married life has
given me a bit of a cushion around the middle that I’ll need to lose before we
cross blades with the Parthians!”
` “Nothing a leisurely march of a few thousand
miles won’t cure,” said Caesar. “Now go
and get to know the lads, and report back to me in a few days when you have gotten
a feel for their mettle. You’ve seen
enough action to know good soldiers when you see them.”
For the next few days Marcus drilled
and trained the young recruits, teaching them how to wield their swords,
throwing spears with them, and running through basic formations. They were good lads indeed, and he found
himself hoping that he would be able to lead them in combat. Once he was satisfied with their progress, he
crossed the pomerium back into the city to report to Caesar.
The Dictator was donning a formal
toga, about to leave for dinner, when Marcus found him at the domus
publicus. Caesar was glad to see him, and gladder still when Severus
reported on his men’s training.
“I knew you’d be able to whip them
into shape!” he said. “I want you to
ride with me when I leave Rome in a couple of days, and they can follow
us. I’ve already sent my legates
eastward, and I have a nice crop of young officers, too. My nephew Octavius and his friend Marcus Agrippa
both show great promise, and I will ask you to help show them their
duties. In fact, I am thinking you would
be a fine Military Tribune for this expedition.”
“Tribune?” Severus said. “I don’t know if I’m worthy of such rank, but
I’ll strive to do it justice, sir!”
“Well, why don’t you go and celebrate
your promotion?” Caesar said, tossing him a sack of coins. “I have a dreadful formal dinner party to
attend, but there’s no reason one of us shouldn’t go and have a good time!”
It was a bit of rancid mutton that
changed the life of Marcus Severus - and indeed, the history of Rome - that
night. Marcus had gone to visit one of
his favorite taverns, a smelly old dive on the Aventine where he’d gambled and
whored in his youth. He consumed far too
much wine that night, and won a few coins at dice, and then decided to order a
slab of mutton for his dinner. It didn’t
taste rotten, but it did have that distinct tang that meat acquired when it was
on the cusp of going from well-aged to spoiled.
When Severus staggered out of the tavern shortly after midnight, his
stomach was already churning, and by the time he crossed to Forum heading
toward Mars’ Gate, he was feeling distinctly ill. As he neared the Temple of Ops, a sudden
burst of nausea sent him ducking into the narrow alley behind the temple, where
he threw up his entire dinner and most of the wine he’d drunk that
evening. When he finally purged himself
of the offending meal, he felt a bit dizzy and lightheaded. It wasn’t the first time he’d ever gotten
sick from bad meat, and he knew that after he simply rested for a few minutes
he would be fine. He moved away from the
mess he’d made on the ground and sat down in the shadow of a small shrub that
grew next to the temple wall, closing his eyes and wishing his rebellious guts
to settle down. He was just beginning to
feel clearheaded when he heard voices approaching. Not wanting to intrude on a conversation of
strangers, he shrank back into the shadow and pulled his cloak over his head.
There were three men approaching, deep
in conversation, heedless of his presence.
Marcus recognized one of the voices immediately – it was Gaius
Trebonius, Caesar’s fighting legate from Gaul.
Hazarding a peek, he saw that he knew the other two also – Decimus
Brutus, another Gallic War veteran, and Cassius Longinus, a rather vain young
Senator who had gained fame by rallying the survivors of Crassus’ horrible
defeat at Carrhae a few years before, and using them to defeat a Parthian
invasion force in Asia Province shortly thereafter.
“Are you sure Brutus is with us?”
Longinus said. “I’d never have thought
he’d have the stones for any kind of bloodshed!”
“He is,” Trebonius replied. “I told him that no tyrannicide would be
complete without a Junius Brutus on board for the kill, and he readily
agreed. He may be a bit of a fop, but he
has never forgiven Caesar for breaking his engagement to Julia.”
“Then both branches of the family are
represented,” said Decimus Brutus. “I
don’t have my cousin’s personal hatred of Caesar, but I recognize the necessity
of his removal. It is an offense to the
gods for one man to stand so tall over all of Rome. He is the sun; we are the
stars. While he is in our sky, we cannot
shine. And we are sons of Romulus! We
were born to shine!”
“Well said!” Cassius replied. “But we need to strike soon. Caesar leaves
Rome after the next meeting of the Senate, and once he is with his legions, he will
be beyond our reach. We’ll have to catch
him when he’s not surrounded by that army of clients, though. The Head Count seem to think him Jupiter in
the flesh; most of them would sacrifice their lives for him without a second
thought!”
“The mob is fickle,” said
Trebonius. “Once he’s gone, they will
forget him soon enough. But you’re
right; we need to kill him while he is unarmed.”
Severus could not believe his
ears. Trebonius had been a magnificent
legate; brave in battle, cunning in strategy, and high in Caesar’s favor. Decimus Brutus had fought side by side with
Caesar and Mark Antony in the siege of Alesium, winning a Civic Crown for his
valor. How could these men, who owed all
they had to Caesar, now be calmly plotting his death?
“Brutus suggested we strike him down
in the Senate itself,” Trebonius said.
“He has dismissed his lictors and will be unprotected. The rabble cannot enter the Temple while the
Senate is in session, so his Head Count clients will not be able to interfere.”
“What about Marcus Antonius?” Cassius
said. “The man is a lion in battle, and
if he moves to protect Caesar, the two of them might resist long enough for aid
to be summoned.”
“Antony is drowning in debt,”
Trebonius said. “He is Caesar’s cousin
and heir, and he stands to gain a fortune when the Dictator is gone. He is aware of our plans and says he will not
stand in our way.”
“The pig!” Decimus Brutus
snapped. “He may say that now, but when
the knives come out, the call of blood may be stronger than the lure of
gold. I say we kill him too – kill him
first, if need be!”
“No,” Trebonius said. “Antony has agreed to grant us legal
protection, and I have pledged in return that we will allow him to remain in
office after the deed is done. But you
are right; when he sees his cousin flailing against our steel, his emotions
might overcome him. So I will distract
Mark Antony, keeping him outside the curia until the deed is done. I hate not being able to strike a blow, but
someone must do it, and Antony trusts me.
Perhaps one of you can stab Caesar twice for me!”
The other two laughed at that, and the
trio departed shortly thereafter.
Severus stayed where he was, his head spinning with the import of what
he had just heard. Finally, when he was
sure they were gone, he slowly rose from the shadows and ran as fast as he
could back to the Domus Publica, pounding on the front door until
Caesar’s steward Aristus answered.
“Caesar is abed,” the old man said,
“and has left instructions not to be disturbed.
What brings you here in the middle of the night?”
“Murder!” snapped Severus. “Treason most foul! They are planning to kill Caesar on the Ides
of March, and he must be warned. Fetch
him now! Tell him that Marcus Junius
Severus brings dark tidings! Hurry,
man!”
“Aristus,” Caesar’s voice echoed down
the hall, “who on earth is making such a racket during the hours when Morpheus
should hold sway?”
“Thank Jupiter!” Severus muttered, then shouted down the hall.
“Caesar, I must break words with you!”
Moments later he was ensconced in
Caesar’s study with a cup of mulled wine at his elbow. The Dictator of Rome looked at him curiously
when Marcus asked for him to dismiss the servants, but nodded to the old
steward, who left them alone.
“All right then, Severus,” Caesar
said. “I can see you’ve had a great
shock. Now that you’ve had a moment to
collect yourself, tell me what brings you banging on my door in the middle of
the night.”
Severus took a sip of the spiced wine
and then told the whole story, doing his best to recall every single detail –
every word he’d overheard, every gesture he’d seen. Caesar sat across from him, silent, his face
slowly growing paler. In any other man, such a color might indicate
fright. But Marcus Severus had fought
alongside Caesar for years, and he recognized that the Old Man was furious –
that famous temper which made the most seasoned centurions quake in their boots
and wet their loincloths was struggling now to come untethered. When he was finished, Gaius Julius Caesar
stood and began pacing around the room, his fists clenched in fury.
“Mentulae! Verpae!” he snapped. “I made those men, I trusted them, I raised
them up the cursus honorum in my wake, and would have done more for them
yet, had they only remained loyal. And
this is how they repay me? Ah, my old friend, the perfidy of mankind never
ceases to amaze me! Trebonius the
brave? Decimus the steadfast? Both now wanting to kill me? Paugh!” Caesar
spat on the floor in fury and hurled his goblet across the room.
With that, Caesar sat down across from
Severus again, and heaved a long sigh.
In the space of a moment, his expression passed from rage to sadness.
“I have half a mind to stroll into the
Senate unarmed and bare my breast to their daggers,” he said. “I am so tired of having to fight the
pigheaded opposition of small-minded men who will not allow me my dignitas! I never wanted to be Dictator, Severus. I never wanted civil war, or to wade through
the blood of my fellow Romans! All I
wished was to come home from Gaul, stand for Consul, and see my conquests
confirmed by the Senate. Then I would
have been happy to head off to the East and deal with the Parthians and bring
poor old Crassus’ eagles back to Rome.
But they would not have it. Little
men that they are, they cannot stand to see me play the role Fortuna has
decreed for me! How long must I contend
for what is rightfully mine? Ah,
Severus, my loyal old soldier, if it were just my own future at stake, I’d let
them end my life on the Ides of March!”
“Jupiter forbid!” Severus said. “Rome needs you, Caesar. No one else knows how to fix all that is
wrong with our decrepit Republic.”
“There’s the rub,” Caesar said. “It’s not just my future at stake, it is
Rome’s. It is for Rome that I must
contend, for Rome’s glory and her future.
Therefore, I must destroy this plot and all who took part in it.”
He rose again and began to pace, then
put his hand on Severus’ shoulder.
“You have proven your loyalty to me,
Severus, both on the battlefield and in the Forum,” he said. “I think it is high time that you had a
greater reward than military rank. Your Corona
Civitas entitles you to membership in the Senate, and you own enough acreage
to meet the property requirement. Your modesty
is endearing, but it is time you have your due.
On the Ides you shall enter the Senate by my side as its newest member.”
“I thank you, Caesar, for wanting me
by your side, and I’ll defend you with my life.
But from what they said, there are twenty-three of them planning to kill
you!” Severus said. “I am yours to the
death, but I don’t know that I can fend off that many, even with you by my
side. Wouldn’t it be better to arrest
them now?”
“No, old friend, we don’t even know
who they all are,” said Caesar. “And if
I begin levelling accusations against such prominent men without hard proof, I
will be unable to leave Rome for a year or more until all the trials are
done! We must catch them in the act, and
to do that I must appear to be oblivious to their plans. Even bringing you with me must seem like an
afterthought, rather than a precaution.
Then, when they try to strike, we can turn the tables on them and
dispose of them all quickly, brutally, and publicly.”
“But how?” Severus asked. “You’ll be walking into a den of lions,
Caesar!”
“There are only a couple of lions in
the lot,” said Caesar. “The rest are
rabbits, or perhaps jackals at best. Decimus
Brutus and Trebonius are the two I worry about – and they must die first. When they are gone, the rest of them will
fold quickly enough. But it will be a
game of nerves – they must be allowed to strike first, or at least, to begin their
strike.”
“That’s a great risk to take with your
life, sir,” Severus said. “Rome has only
one Caesar!”
“But Caesar is Fortuna’s favorite,” the
Dictator said with a grim smile. “The simple fact that you are here tonight
shows that she has not yet forsaken me!
Now listen, and I will explain how we are going to pull this off . . .”
Two days later, shortly past noon,
Severus found himself striding through the Roman Forum to Pompey’s Theater, where
the Senate was meeting while the new curia was being built for it. He was wearing a blinding white toga with
purple stripes on the sleeve, the formal attire of a Senator, but underneath it
was a hardened leather cuirass which was proof against all but the most
determined dagger thrusts. Strapped to
his ribs on his left side, concealed by the flowing white garment, was a short,
sturdy blade, honed to razor sharpness.
He had practiced reaching through the toga’s folds till he could draw it
in a split second. Caesar was similarly
armored and armed underneath his own rich, purple toga. To all appearances, two unarmed men, one the
dictator of Rome, the other a nervous pedarii Senator preparing for his
debut, walked through the great Roman Forum. Merchants, travelers, and gawkers
milled about as they always did, and if there were more young, physically fit
men among the crowd than was normal, none of the Forum regulars seemed to
notice.
Mark Antony, Caesar’s Master of Horse,
ambled along a few paces behind them, somewhat bewildered as to why his cousin
Gaius had chosen to promote a common centurion to the Senate on the eve of his
departure. As they neared the curia, Gaius
Trebonius stepped forward and greeted them.
“Ave, Caesar,” he said, holding
up his hand. “It is good that you could
join us; the Conscript Fathers were getting restive.”
“I had religious duties to attend to
as Pontifex Maximus,” Caesar said. “I
told you it would be afternoon before I arrived.”
“Indeed you did, sir, and I did not
mean to imply you were frivolously tardy,” Trebonius said. “But there is much business to be attended to
before you leave tomorrow, so I am glad you are here. Antonius, may I bend your ear for a moment
before we enter?” he asked smoothly, and Antony turned aside to converse with
him. Severus shot a nervous look at
Caesar, and they entered the Curia Pompeia together. The Senate chamber was only a third full;
many Senators were away on military duty, while others simply chose not to
attend that day. Severus noticed that
Decimus Brutus and Cassius Longinus were nearer to the front of the chamber
than their seniority warranted, while Marcus Junius Brutus hung back,
uncertainty written on his dark, pockmarked face.
True to form, Caesar had a half dozen
scrolls tucked under one arm, and he quickly took a seat in his ivory curule
chair on the dais facing the benches of the Senate. Pompey’s statue loomed behind him, a constant
reminder of the First Man in Rome that had once been Caesar’s friend, ally, and
son-in-law, only to become his bitterest enemy.
“Give me just a moment, Conscript
Fathers,” Caesar said calmly, “While I prepare these documents for your
perusal.”
Two senators, Lucius Tillius Cimber
and Gaius Servilius Casca, began edging towards the dais, and Severus, watching
from the corner of his eye, saw both of them reaching under their togas. Cimber slowly drew a dagger similar to the
one that Severus carried and held it flat against his arm as he stepped up to
the dais.
“I said wait a moment!” Caesar
snapped.
Cimber lunged forward, grabbed the
dictator’s toga and yanked it down to bare Caesar’s neck and shoulder with one
hand, while raising the dagger with the other.
“Now, you fools!” he cried, and Casca
lunged forward, his own dagger raised to strike.
Not fast enough. Like lightning Caesar was on his feet, and
his own dagger was buried to the hilt in Cimber’s throat before the Senator
could release his grip on the Dictator’s toga.
Severus moved in just as fast, catching Casca’s arm in mid-stroke, and
slipping his own dagger between the man’s ribs. The two assailants fell back
and collapsed, twitching in their death throes, and Severus lifted the
centurion’s whistle he’d been palming in his left hand and blew a long, hard
blast. Suddenly a dozen burly figures stood
in the doorway of the curia, naked blades in their hands.
“Death to the tyrant!” Decimus Brutus
cried, showing the same courage he had displayed at Alesia, and charged at
Caesar. Cassius followed hard on his
heels, along with a half dozen others.
Marcus Junius Brutus dropped his dagger and ran for the door, only to be
cut down by one of Severus’ troops, who had been loitering in the Forum
listening for the whistle.
The battle in the Curia lasted for
only a moment or two; Cassius managed to run his dagger through Caesar’s
forearm even as Caesar’s blade found his heart, and Severus tackled Decimus
before he reached Caesar and found himself locked in a life and death struggle
with a soldier as tough and skilled as he was.
But Fortuna favored Caesar’s defender as she did Caesar himself; Brutus’
blade glanced off his hidden cuirass and got tangled in the folds of the stiff
new toga, while Marcus was able to plunge his own blade into the Senator’s
midsection twice, twisting it as he withdrew.
Brutus’ face twisted in agony, but he cried out before collapsing.
“Roma Liber!” he cried – “Free
Rome! Kill the tyrant!”
But a half-dozen of the would-be
Liberators were now dead or dying, and the remainder hesitated, and then one by
one, they dropped their daggers onto the polished metal floor of the Senate
Chamber as Severus’ men took them into custody.
“Cousin, are you all right?” Antony’s
booming voice came from the Curia’s entrance.
“That verpa Trebonius drew a dagger and tried to join the fray,
but I cut him down before he got three feet.
Thank all the gods you are safe!”
Caesar was wrapping a fold of his toga
around his bleeding forearm; the wound was painful, but clean, and it would
heal quickly enough. He looked at Mark
Antony with a grim smile.
“Nice try, Cousin,” he said. “Killing Trebonius to convince me of your
loyalty was a good touch. But I know
that you were aware of their plot and did not inform me, nor lift a finger to
stop them. The bonds of family blood no
longer protect you. Legionaries - take Marcus
Antonius into custody and put him with the other conspirators. Search every Senator! No one with a dagger on his person may leave
the chamber.”
Antony let out a bellow and ran,
pushing his way past the soldiers as they tried to seize him. A few of Caesar’s clients tried to stop him,
but he drove his dagger into one’s throat and the rest fell back. In a moment, the Master of Horse was out of
sight, sprinting towards the Gate of Mars.
“Just as well,” said Caesar. “I prefer not to have the blood of a kinsman
on my hand. Now then, you said there
were twenty-three conspirators. I see
six dead, plus Trebonius outside. Do we
have the rest?”
A quick count showed that sixteen
Senators had been apprehended with daggers in hand or on their person. Caesar returned to the dais and faced the
chamber, the bodies of Casca and Cimber still lying where they fell before him.
“Conscript Fathers, all of you who
were not a part of this foul plot, take your seats for just a moment,” he
said.
One by one, the members of the Senate,
who had been milling around the chamber in alarm, took their seats. About eighty remained in a forum designed to
seat several hundred, far short of a quorum.
But under Roman law, the Dictator did not require a quorum.
“See here these Roman monsters!” Caesar
said, cradling his wounded arm. “Men I
pardoned for fighting against me, men I lifted up to the very seats they have
just disgraced! Twenty-three Roman
Senators banded together to take the life of the lawfully appointed Dictator of
Rome, for what cause? Why, I ask you? Have
I not repeatedly refused every royal honor offered to me? Have I not refilled Rome’s treasury? Have I not brought peace and prosperity? Have I ever made war without first offering
peace? Have I not expanded Rome’s
Empire, and vanquished Rome’s enemies? Could any of these men have achieved
what I have done in the last year alone, even if given a lifetime?”
“No!” said Severus. “Rome has only one Caesar!”
A chorus of voices joined him, and
Caesar smiled at the former centurion who had saved his life.
“These sixteen men are guilty of Great
Treason,” said Caesar. “I move that they
be stripped of their citizenship and hurled from the Tarpeian Rock immediately,
as the law prescribes. I will see a
division of the House on this motion without delay. All in favor, pass to my
right.”
Not a single Senator present voted to acquit
the assassins. An hour later, the
sixteen men were escorted to the jagged pinnacle high above the city, and one
by one, they were shoved over the edge to their deaths on the rocks below. Caesar stood there, his face pale with
fatigue and loss of blood, but his countenance hard as iron. When the last
assassin had been disposed of, he turned to his lictors, who had been hastily
reassembled.
“Let us return to the Domus Publica,”
he said. “Send word that I expect every
single member of the Senate to be in attendance tomorrow! But for now, I must rest and reassure my wife
Calpurnia that I am alive and well.”
“Aye, Caesar,” said Severus. “I don’t suppose you want me there tomorrow,
do you? This Senate thing isn’t
permanent, I hope!”
“Your promotion to the Senate was no
ruse, my friend!” he said. “You are now
one of the Conscript Fathers of Rome, but I still need your services on our
march to the East. In saving me,
Severus, you have saved Rome itself – and ennobled yourself for life. I
think military tribune is beneath the dignity of one with Senatorial rank. I plan to name you as my next Senior
Legate. Centurions usually know more
about leading troops than generals do, and you will be proof of that!”
“I am wholly unworthy of such an
honor, Caesar!” Severus protested.
“On the contrary, my friend,” Caesar
said. “You have done more than save me
this day, Marcus Junius Severus. I said
you saved Rome itself today, and I meant it, for I am Rome, and I will be Rome
until I have done all that my name and my blood require. You have shown your worth, sir, and earned my
gratitude. Now let us share a cup of
wine to celebrate your promotion!”
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