Текст книги "The Ides of March"

Автор книги: Valerio Massimo Manfredi

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Valerio Massimo Manfredi
The Ides of March

Those who are about to die are dead,

and the dead are nothing.

Euripides, Alcestis, 527

1

Romae, ante diem VIII Idus Martias, hora prima

Rome, 8 March, six a.m.

The day dawned grey. The winter sky was heavy, leaden, the morning a mere hint of light filtering through the vaporous mass spreading over the horizon. Sounds were muffled as well, as dull and sluggish as the clouds veiling the light. The wind came down the Vicus Jugarius in uncertain puffs, like the laboured breathing of a fugitive.

A magistrate appeared in the square at the south end of the Forum. He walked alone, but the insignia he wore made him recognizable all the same, and he was advancing at a brisk pace towards the Temple of Saturn. He slowed in front of the statue of Lucius Junius Brutus, the hero who had overthrown the monarchy nearly five centuries earlier. At the feet of the frowning bronze effigy, on the pedestal bearing his epitaph, someone had scribbled in red lead: ‘Do you slumber, Brutus?’

The magistrate shook his head and continued on his way, adjusting the toga that slipped from his narrow shoulders at every flurry. He walked quickly up the temple steps, past the still-steaming altar, and disappeared into the shadows of the portico.

A window opened on the top floor of the House of the Vestals. The virgins who maintained the sacred fire were busy with their duties, while the others were preparing to rest after their night-long vigil.

The Vestalis Maxima, wrapped all in white, had just left the inner courtyard and turned towards the statue of Vesta, which stood in the centre of the cloister, when the earth began to shake beneath her feet. The goddess’s head swayed to the right and then to the left. The moulding behind the fountain cracked and a chunk broke off, falling sharply to the ground, the sound amplified by the surrounding silence.

As the Vestal raised her eyes to the wind and clouds, dull thunder could be heard in the distance. Her eyes filled with foreboding. Why was the earth trembling?

On the Tiber Island, headquarters to the Ninth Legion, which was stationed outside the city walls under the command of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the last shift was going off guard duty. The soldiers and their centurion saluted the Eagle and returned in double file to their quarters. The Tiber flowed turbulently around the island, her dark, swollen waters rising to wash over the bare branches of the alders that bent at her banks.

A high-pitched, broken scream punctured the livid silence of dawn. A scream from the residence of the Pontifex Maximus. The House of the Vestals was practically adjacent and the virgins were thrown into panic. They’d heard the scream before, but each time it was worse.

Another scream and the Vestalis Maxima went to the door. From the threshold she could see the bodyguards, two enormous Celts, flanking the door of the Domus. They were apparently impassive. Perhaps they were accustomed to the screams and knew where they came from. Could they be coming from him? From the Pontifex himself? The sound was distorted and mewling now, like the whine of an animal in pain. Hurried footsteps could be heard as a man approached the door carrying a leather bag and made his way past the two Celts, solid and still as telamons. He slipped into the front hall of the ancient building.

The rumble of distant thunder still sounded from the mountains and a stiff wind bowed the tops of the ash trees on the Quirinal. Three trumpet blasts announced the new day. The Vestalis Maxima closed the door to the sanctuary and gathered herself in prayer before the goddess.

The doctor was met by Calpurnia, the wife of the Pontifex Maximus. She seemed quite frightened.

‘Antistius, at last! Come this way quickly. We haven t been able to calm him down this time. Silius is with him.’

Searching through his bag as he followed her, Antistius pulled out a wooden stick covered with leather and entered the room.

Lying on an unkempt bed and dripping with sweat, his eyes staring at nothing, his mouth drooling while his teeth were clenched tight and bared in a snarl, was the Pontifex Maximus, Dictator Perpetuo, Caius Julius Caesar, in the throes of a seizure. The brawny arms of his adjutant, Silius Salvidienus, held him down.

Calpurnia lowered her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see her husband this way and turned to the wall. Meanwhile, Antistius got on to the bed and worked the wooden stick between his patient’s teeth until he could force them apart.

‘Keep him still!’ he ordered Silius. ‘Still!’

He extracted a glass phial from his bag and placed a few drops of dark liquid on Caesar’s tongue. In a short while, the seizures began to let up, but Silius didn’t release his hold until the doctor signalled that he could ease Caesar back down on to his back. The adjutant then gently covered him with a woollen blanket.

Calpurnia drew closer. She wiped the sweat from Caesar’s brow and the drool from his mouth, then wet his lips with a piece of linen soaked in cool water. She turned to Antistius.

‘What is this terrible thing?’ she asked him. ‘Why does it happen?’

Caesar now lay in a state of complete prostration. His eyes were closed and his breathing was laboured and heavy.

‘The Greeks call it the “sacred disease”, because the ancients believed it was the doing of spirits – demons or the gods. Alexander himself suffered from it, so they say, but in reality no one knows what it is. We recognize the symptoms and can only try to limit the damage. The greatest danger is that the person suffering an attack will bite off his tongue with his own teeth. Some have even been suffocated by their tongues. But I’ve given him his usual sedative, which fortunately seems quite effective. What worries me is the frequency of the attacks. The last one was only two weeks ago.’

‘What can we do?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Antistius, shaking his head. ‘We can’t do any more than we’ve already done.’

Caesar opened his eyes and slowly looked around. He then turned to Silius and Calpurnia.

‘Leave me alone with him,’ he said, gesturing towards the doctor.

Silius shot a puzzled glance at Antistius.

‘You can go,’ said Antistius. ‘There’s no immediate danger. But don’t go too far. You never know.’

Silius nodded and left the room with Calpurnia. He had always helped and supported her and was her husband’s – his commander’s – shadow. Centurion of the legendary Tenth Legion, a veteran with twenty years’ service, he had salt and pepper hair, dark, damp eyes, as quick as a child’s, and the neck of a bull. He followed Calpurnia out like a puppy.

The doctor put his ear to his patient’s chest and listened. Caesar’s heartbeat was returning to normal.

‘Your condition is improving,’ he said.

‘That doesn’t interest me,’ replied Caesar. ‘Tell me this instead: what would happen if I had such a fit in public? If I fell to the floor foaming at the mouth in the Senate or at the Rostra?’

Antistius bowed his head.

‘You don’t have an answer for me, do you?’

‘No, Caesar, but I understand you. The fact is that these attacks don’t give any warning. Or not that I know of.’

‘So they depend on the whims of the gods?’

‘You believe in the gods?’

‘I am the Pontifex Maximus. What should I tell you?’

‘The truth. I’m your doctor and if you want me to help you, I have to understand your mind as well as your body.’

‘I believe that we are surrounded by mystery. There’s room for anything in mystery, even the gods.’

‘Hippocrates said that this illness would only be called the “sacred disease” until its causes were discovered.’

‘Hippocrates was right but, unfortunately, the disease continues to be “sacred” today and will remain so, I fear, for some time to come. And yet I cannot afford to give any public display of my weaknesses. You can understand that, can’t you?’

‘I can. But the only one who can tell when an attack is coming on is you. They say that the sacred disease gives no warning, but that each man reacts differently to it. Have you ever had a sign, something that made you think an attack was about to take place?’

Caesar drew a long breath and remained silent, forcing himself to remember. At length, he replied, ‘Perhaps. Not any clear sign, nothing that is identical from one time to the next. But occasionally it happens that I see images from other times, suddenly. . like flashes.’

‘What kind of images?’

‘Massacres, fields strewn with dead bodies, clouds galloping, shrieking like Furies from hell.’

‘They might be actual memories, or simply nightmares. We all have them. You more than anyone, I imagine. No one else has lived a life like yours.’

‘No, they’re not nightmares. When I say “images”, I’m talking about something I actually see in front of me, like I am seeing you now.’

‘And are these. . visions always followed by attacks of this sort?’

‘Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. I can’t say for certain that they are connected to my disease. It’s a sly enemy I’ve made for myself, Antistius, an enemy with no face, who pounces, strikes and slips away like a ghost. I am the most powerful man in the world and yet I’m as helpless in the face of this as the lowest of wretches.’

Antistius sighed. ‘If you were anyone else, I would recommend. .’

‘What?’

‘That you withdraw into private life. Leave the city, public office, political strife. Others have done so before you: Scipio Africanus, Sulla. Perhaps the disease would let go of you if you let go of your daily battles. But I don’t suppose you’d ever follow my advice, would you?’

Caesar raised himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed, then swung his feet to the floor and stood up.

‘No. I can’t afford to. There are still too many things I must do. I’ll live with the risk.’

‘Then surround yourself with men you trust. Arrange things so that, if it should happen, someone is there to cover you with a toga and there is a closed litter ready to take you where no one can see you. I will be waiting there for you. When the crisis has passed you will be able to return to what you were doing as if nothing had happened. That’s all I can say.’

Caesar nodded. ‘It’s good advice. You can go now, Antistius. I feel better.’

‘I’d rather stay.’

‘No. You must have other business to attend to. Send in Silius with my breakfast. I’ll have something to eat.’

Antistius nodded. ‘As you wish. Along with your breakfast, Silius will bring you a potion I’ll mix for you now. It will help to thin the humours of your spleen. That should provide some relief. Now, lie back and give those stiff limbs a little rest. When you feel stronger, a hot bath and a massage would be in order.’ There was no answer from Caesar and Antistius walked out with a sigh.

He found Calpurnia in the atrium, sitting in an armchair. She was still wearing her nightgown and she had not bathed or eaten. The signs of strain were evident on her face and in her posture. When she saw Antistius heading for the kitchen, she followed him.

‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What do you think?’

‘There’s nothing new, but unfortunately I have the impression that the disease has taken hold. For the moment all we can do is seek to limit its effects. However, we can always hope that it will go away as suddenly as it started. Remember that Caesar is a man of great resources.’

‘No man can weather so many storms of the body and spirit without suffering lasting damage. The past ten years have been as intense as ten lives and they’ve taken their toll. Caesar is fifty-six years old, Antistius, and yet he intends to embark on another expedition in the East. Against the Parthians.’

As the doctor was crushing seeds in a mortar and then setting them to boil on the stove, Calpurnia sat down. A maidservant began preparing her usual breakfast, an egg cooked under the embers and some toasted bread.

‘And that woman is only making the situation worse.’

Antistius didn’t need to ask to whom she was referring. Cleopatra VII, the Queen of Egypt, was living in Caesar’s villa on the far side of the Tiber. He fell silent, knowing what would happen if he expressed any opinion at all on the subject. Cleopatra had even brought her child to the villa with her, a boy she’d dared to call Ptolemy Caesar.

‘That whore,’ Calpurnia continued, realizing that Antistius was not going to pick up on her invitation to join the conversation. ‘I hope she drops dead. I’ve even had the evil eye put on her, but who knows what antidotes she’s found to protect herself, and what philtres she’s given my husband to drink to keep him bound to her.’

Antistius couldn’t help but speak. ‘My lady, any middle-aged man would be flattered to conceive a child with a beautiful woman in the bloom of youth. It makes him feel young, vigorous. .’

Here his voice dropped off and he bit his tongue: not exactly the most diplomatic of things to tell a woman who had never been able to have children herself.

‘Forgive me,’ he added hastily. ‘This is really no affair of mine. What’s more, Caesar doesn’t need to feel vigorous. He is vigorous. I’ve been a doctor my whole life and I’ve yet to see another man of such a hardy constitution.’

‘Never mind. I’m used to hearing such things,’ replied Calpurnia. ‘What worries me is the enormous burden he is carrying. He can’t keep this up much longer and I’m sure there are many men out there who would like nothing better than to see him on his knees. Many of those who feign friendship today would turn into bloodthirsty beasts tomorrow. I trust no one, you understand? Nobody.’

‘Yes, my lady, I do,’ replied the doctor.

He took his potion off the flame, filtered it and poured it into a cup that he set on the tray where the cook was arranging Caesar’s breakfast: fava beans, cheese and flatbread with olive oil.

Silius entered and took only the potion.

‘Does he not want breakfast now?’ asked Calpurnia.

‘No. I’ve just spoken to him and he’s changed his mind. He no longer wants to eat. He’s gone out on to the terrace.’

‘Your potion, Caesar.’

Caesar had his back to Silius, his hands on the balustrade. He was facing the Aventine Hill, from where a flock of starlings had risen like a dark cloud flying towards the Tiber.

He turned slowly, as if he’d only just realized that Silius was present. He took the steaming potion and set it on the parapet. After a few moments he lifted it to his lips and took a sip.

‘Where is Publius Sextius?’ he asked after he’d swallowed.

‘Centurion Publius Sextius is in Modena, on your orders, Caesar.’

‘Yes, yes, I know that, but according to my calculations he should be heading back by now. Has he sent a message?’

‘No, not that I know of.’

‘If a letter arrives from him, inform me immediately, at any time of day or night and no matter what I am doing.’

‘You’re expected shortly at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the Capitol to offer a sacrifice. If you’re feeling strong enough, of course.’

Caesar took another sip of the potion and looked Silius in the eye.

‘Of course. At times I forget I’m the High Priest of Rome and yet it should be my foremost concern. . No bath and no massage, then.’

‘That depends on you, Caesar,’ replied Silius.

‘Remember: wake me, even if I’m sleeping.’

‘Sorry?’

‘If a message from Sextius arrives.’

‘Of course. Don’t worry.’

‘It should be the first of my concerns. .’ he repeated, as if talking to himself.

Silius looked at him with a puzzled expression, trying to follow Caesar’s meandering thoughts.

‘. . my priesthood, that is. And yet I’ve never believed that the gods care a whit about us. Why should they?’

‘It’s the first time I’ve heard you say such a thing. What are you thinking of, commander?’

‘Don’t you know why we burn victims on the altar day after day? It’s so that the gods will see the smoke rising from our cities and remember not to trample them when they walk invisibly on the earth. Otherwise they would crush us as easily as we crush an ant.’

‘What an interesting analogy, sir,’ replied Silius. ‘Antistius said to drink it all,’ he added, pointing.

Caesar picked up the cup again and downed the potion.

‘In fact, there is no smoke so black or so dense as that of scorched flesh. Believe me, I know.’

Silius knew as well. And he knew what his commander was thinking of. Silius had been at his side at Pharsalus and at Alexandria, in Africa and in Spain. Ever since Caesar had crossed the Rubicon, the bodies he’d seen burning had been those not of uncivilized enemies but of citizens like himself. The bodies of Roman citizens. Burned into Silius’s memory were images of the battlefield of Pharsalus covered with the corpses of fifteen thousand fellow citizens, including knights, senators, former magistrates. From his horse, Caesar had scanned the field of slaughter with the eyes of a hawk. He had said, ‘It’s what they asked for,’ but in a low voice, as if talking to himself, as if to clear his conscience.

It was Caesar who shook Silius from his thoughts this time, saying, ‘Come now. They’re waiting for us and I still have to get ready.’

They went down together and Silius helped Caesar to wash and dress.

‘Shall I call for the litter?’ Silius asked.

‘No. We’ll go on foot. The stroll will do me good.’

‘Then I’ll call your guard.’

‘No, don’t bother. Actually, I’m thinking I should get rid of them.’

‘Of your personal guard? Why would you do that?’

‘I don’t like the idea of going around my own city with bodyguards. That’s what tyrants do.’

Silius regarded him with amazement but said nothing. He blamed Caesar s strange attitude and behaviour on his illness. Could the disease be influencing the way he thought?

‘After all,’ Caesar continued, ‘the senators have approved a senatus consultumin which they swear to shield me with their own bodies if my person should be threatened. What better defence could I ask for?’

Silius was dumbfounded. He couldn t believe what he was hearing and was already thinking of how to prevent Caesar from taking such a foolhardy decision. He asked to be excused, went down to the ground floor and instructed several of the servants to follow them at a distance with a litter.

They walked down the Sacred Way, passing in front of the Temple of Vesta and the basilica that Caesar was building with the spoils of his campaign against the Gauls. Although he had dedicated it two years before, driven by a sense of urgency even then, the work had not yet been completed.

It was a magnificent structure nonetheless, clad in precious marble, with a wide central nave and two aisles. The basilica was one of the gifts that Caesar had offered the city, but certainly not the last. Since his return from Alexandria, Rome no longer satisfied him. The city had grown in a disorderly, unharmonious way, building upon building, creating an impression of unseemly clutter. The imposing roads, majestic palaces and extraordinary monuments of Alexandria, which excited the admiration of visitors from every part of the world, were utterly lacking in Rome.

The Forum to their right was beginning to fill up with people, but no one noticed Caesar because he’d pulled his toga over his head and his face wasn’t visible. They passed in front of the Temple of Saturn, the god who had ruled during the Age of Gold, back when men were happy with what the soil and their flocks offered them. Back when men lived in simple wooden huts, sleeping soundly after a modest meal shared around the table with their wives and children, before waking to birdsong.

Silius found himself thinking that the age destiny had reserved for him was quite different: an age of ferocity and greed, of incessant conflict, civil strife, the slaughter of Romans by other Romans, citizens banished, exiled, sentenced to death. A violent age, an age of war and betrayal. And hatred between brothers was the fiercest and most implacable hatred of all, Silius mused, as he glanced over at Caesar’s face, which was carved by the shadows of the toga that fell at the sides of his head. He wondered whether this man might truly be the founder of a new age. An age in which these seemingly endless hostilities would run their course and open on to an era of peace so lasting that it would make men forget how much blood had been spilled and how tenaciously their rancour had gripped them. He raised his eyes to the grand temple which dominated the city from the top of the Capitol.

The sky was dark.