Cicero - Anthony Everitt [133]
The veterans’ defiance collapsed. It had not occurred to them that they would simply be dismissed. AS Caesar well knew, most of them loved and trusted him and for all their grievances could not bear the thought that he no longer needed them and would turn them away. The mood of the meeting was transformed. Men crowded up to the speaker’s dais, begging Caesar to change his mind and take them to Africa after all. With simulated reluctance he allowed himself to be won over.
After making some essential administrative arrangements in Rome, Caesar left the city for Africa in December 47. Once more he would be fighting a winter campaign against superior forces, for Cato and the Republicans had mustered ten legions. Also, despite the fact that it was a scandalous thing to encourage foreigners to fight against Romans, they had allied themselves with King Juba of Mauritania, who brought four legions with him. Rome was left on tenterhooks again. For once, Cicero reacted calmly to uncertainty. While waiting for news, he stayed in Rome to be near his friends. He wrote to a correspondent: “I think the victory of either will amount to pretty much the same thing.”
In April 46 Caesar won a decisive victory at Thapsus, despite the fact that at the outset of the battle he suffered from what sounds like an epileptic fit. The author of the history of the campaign, who was probably an officer on Caesar’s staff, referred to it as “his usual malady.” Caesar’s hectic and energetic life was catching up with him, and these attacks increased in frequency in his remaining years. He then marched on the North African port of Utica, where Cato and the few remaining Republican forces were based. It would be a great propaganda coup if he could extend his clemency to this obdurate upholder of Republican values. Cato understood this too and was determined to prevent him.
The Republican armies had been defeated and the war appeared to be over. All who wanted to leave by ship were allowed to do so, but Cato refused to let a delegation be sent to sue for peace. “I decline to be under an obligation to the tyrant for his illegal acts,” he said. “He is acting against the law when he pardons people over whom he has no authority, as if he owned them.”
A few nights later, after a bath and supper, there was some pleasant conversation over wine. Among the topics discussed was a paradox from Stoic philosophy: whatever his circumstances, the good man is free and only the bad man is a slave. Cato spoke so vehemently in favor of this proposition that his listeners guessed his intention. He then retired to bed and read Plato’s Phaedo, the famous dialogue on the nature of death and the immortality of the soul. His son had removed his sword from his room, much to Cato’s anger. He was so upset when he noticed its absence that he hit a slave on the mouth and hurt his hand. When the weapon was brought back, he said: “Now I am my own master.” He took up his book again, which he read through twice before falling into an unusually deep sleep. In the morning he asked for news and dozed.
Then, when he was alone, he stabbed himself in the stomach, but, owing to his now inflamed hand, failed to strike home. He fell off his bed and knocked over a geometrical abacus standing nearby, which clattered to the floor, making a loud noise. His son and the servants ran in and found Cato unconscious, covered with blood and with his bowels protruding from his stomach. A doctor tried to replace them and sew up the wound. Cato came to and realized what was happening. He pushed the doctor away, tore open the incision and pulled his bowels out again, after which he soon died. He was 48 years old.
The impact of this event on Roman opinion was enormous;