Dictator

To begin with, its meaning buried in legal jargon, the will seemed entirely innocuous. Caesar left his whole estate to any son that might be born to him after the drawing up of the document. However, in the absence of such a son, his wealth passed to the three male descendants of his late sister: that is to Lucius Pinarius, Quintus Pedius and Gaius Octavius, to be divided in the proportions one eighth each to Pinarius and Pedius and three quarters to Octavius, whom he now adopted as his son, henceforth to be known as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus …

Piso stopped reading and frowned, as if he was not sure what he had just announced. An adopted son? Cicero glanced at me, screwed up his eyes in an effort at memory and mouthed, ‘Octavius?’ Antony meanwhile looked as if he had been struck in the face. Unlike Cicero, he knew at once who Octavius was – the eighteen-year-old son of Caesar’s niece Atia – and for him it must have been a bitter disappointment as well as a total surprise: I am sure he must have hoped to be named as the Dictator’s main heir. Instead, he was merely mentioned as an heir in the second degree – that is, one who would inherit only if the first heirs died or turned down their legacy – an honour he shared with Decimus, one of the assassins! In addition, Caesar bequeathed every citizen of Rome the sum of three hundred sesterces in cash, and decreed that his estate beside the Tiber should become a public park.

The meeting broke up into puzzled groups, and afterwards, walking home, Cicero was full of foreboding. ‘That will is a Pandora’s box – a posthumous poisoned gift to the world that lets loose all manner of evils amongst us.’ He was thinking not so much of the unknown Octavius, or Octavian as he was now restyled, who promised to be a short-lived irrelevance (he was not even in the country but was in Illyricum); it was the mention of Decimus combined with the gifts to the people that troubled him.

All through the remainder of that day and throughout the next, preparations went on in the Forum for Caesar’s funeral. Cicero watched them from his terrace. A golden tabernacle, built to resemble the Temple of Venus the Victorious, was erected on the rostra for the body to lie in. Barriers were put up to control the crowds. Actors and musicians rehearsed. Hundreds more of Caesar’s veterans began to appear on the streets, carrying their weapons: some had travelled a hundred miles to attend. Atticus came round and remonstrated with Cicero for having allowed such a spectacle to go ahead: ‘You and Brutus and the others have all gone mad.’

‘It’s easy for you to say that,’ replied Cicero, ‘but how was it to be prevented? We control neither the city nor the Senate. The crucial mistakes were made not after the assassination but before it – a child should have foreseen the consequences of simply removing Caesar and leaving it at that. And now we have the Dictator’s will to contend with.’

Brutus and Cassius sent messages to say that they intended to remain indoors throughout the day of the funeral: they had hired guards and advised Cicero to do the same. Decimus with his gladiators had barricaded his house and turned it into a fortress. Cicero, however, refused to take such precautions, although he prudently decided not to show himself in public. He suggested instead that I might attend the funeral and report back to him.

I did not mind going. No one would recognise me. Besides, I wanted to see it. I could not help feeling a certain secret regard for Caesar, who over the years had always been civil to me. Accordingly I went down into the Forum before dawn (this was now five days after the assassination – it was hard, amid the rush of events, to keep track of time). The centre of the city was already packed with thousands, women as well as men – not so much the polite citizenry but mostly old soldiers, the urban poor, many slaves, and a large contingent of Jews, who revered Caesar for allowing them to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. I managed to work my way around the vast crowd to the corner of the Via Sacra, where the cortège would pass, and a few hours after daybreak I saw in the distance the procession start to leave the official residence of the chief priest.