Dictator

THE PORTICO WAS in chaos. The assassins had gone, escorted by Decimus’s gladiators. No one knew their destination. People were rushing to and fro trying to find out what had happened. The Dictator’s lictors had thrown away their symbols of authority and made a run for it. The remaining senators were also leaving as fast as they could; a few had even stripped off their togas to disguise their rank and were trying to infiltrate themselves into the crowd. Meanwhile, at the far end of the portico, some of the audience from the gladiator fights in the adjacent theatre had heard the commotion and were pouring in to see what was going on.

I sensed that Cicero was in mortal danger. Even though he’d known nothing in advance of the conspiracy, Brutus had called out his name; everyone had heard it. He was an obvious target for vengeance. Caesar’s loyalists might even assume he was the assassins’ leader. Blood would demand blood.

I said, ‘We have to get you away from here.’

To my relief, he nodded, still too stunned to argue. Our porters had fled, abandoning their litters. We had to hurry out of the portico on foot. Meanwhile the games continued oblivious. From Pompey’s theatre welled the roar of applause as the gladiators fought. One would never have guessed what had just occurred, and the more distance we put between ourselves and the portico, the more normal things seemed, so that by the time we reached the Carmenta Gate and entered the city it appeared to be a perfectly ordinary holiday and the assassination felt as if it had been a lurid dream.

Nevertheless, invisible to us, along the back streets and through the markets, conveyed on running feet and in panicky whispers, the news was travelling faster than we could – so that somehow, by the time we reached the house on the Palatine, it had overtaken us, and Cicero’s brother Quintus and Atticus were already arriving from separate directions with garbled versions of what had happened. They did not know much. There had been an attack in the Senate, was all they had heard: Caesar was hurt.

‘Caesar is dead,’ said Cicero, and described what we had just seen. It seemed even more fantastical in recollection than it had at the time. Both men were at first disbelieving and then overjoyed that the Dictator was slain. Atticus, normally so urbane, even performed a little skipping dance.

Quintus said, ‘And you truly had no idea this was coming?’

‘None,’ replied Cicero. ‘They must have kept it from me deliberately. I ought to be offended, but to be honest I’m relieved to have been spared the anxiety. It demanded far more nerve than I could ever have mustered. To have come to the Senate with a concealed blade, to have waited all that time, to have held one’s nerve, to have risked massacre by Caesar’s supporters, and finally to have looked the tyrant in the eye and plunged in the dagger – I don’t mind confessing I could never have done it.’

Quintus said, ‘I could!’

Cicero laughed. ‘Well, you’re more used to blood than I am.’

‘And yet do none of you feel any sorrow for Caesar, simply as a man?’ I asked. ‘After all,’ I said to Cicero, ‘it’s only three months since you were laughing with him over dinner.’

Cicero looked at me with incredulity. ‘I’m amazed that you should ask me that. I imagine I feel as you must have felt on the day you received your freedom. Whether Caesar was a kind master or a cruel one is neither here nor there – master he was, and slaves was what he made us. And now we have been liberated. So let’s have no talk of sorrow.’

He sent out a secretary to see if he could discover the whereabouts of Brutus and the other conspirators. The man came back soon afterwards and reported that they were said to be occupying the upper ground of the Capitol.

Cicero said, ‘I must go at once and offer my support.’

‘Is that wise?’ I asked. ‘As things stand, you bear no responsibility for the killing. But if you go and show your solidarity with them in public, Caesar’s supporters may not see much difference between you and Cassius and Brutus.’

‘Let them. I intend to thank the men who’ve given me back my liberty.’