Cicero - Anthony Everitt [154]
What were Caesar’s real political intentions for the future? It is hard to be certain today, and even contemporaries struggled to find an answer to the question. This may well be because Caesar himself was unsure of the way forward. In all probability he recognized that the formal assertion of monarchy was out of the question. The Dictatorship for Life gave him what he wanted while staying, more or less, inside constitutional norms. He was quoted as saying: “I would prefer to hold the Consulship legally rather than a kingship illegally”; the same principle could be applied to the Dictatorship and this was probably his genuine view on the subject.
Caesar’s personal mood was depressed. His health was deteriorating. (As he got older, it is reported, his epileptic fits became more frequent and he suffered from headaches and nightmares.) He became aware of plots against him and secret nocturnal meetings but took no action except to announce that he knew of them. Warned that Brutus was plotting against him, Caesar touched his body and said: “Brutus will wait for this piece of skin.” On another occasion, though, he took a less sanguine view. When Dolabella and Antony were reported to be plotting revolution, he replied: “It’s not fat, longhaired fellows that worry me but those pale, thin ones”—by whom he meant Brutus and Cassius.
The Dictator dispensed with a troop of armed Spaniards that was his permanent escort, as well as a bodyguard of Senators that had been voted to him. He mingled publicly and unprotected among all comers. When advised to rehire the Spaniards, he said: “There is no fate worse than being continuously under guard, for it means you are always afraid.” His decision was probably as much motivated by scorn for the opposition as by a desire to bid for popularity. “It is more important for Rome than for me that I should survive,” he said on more than one occasion. “If anything happens to me, Rome will enjoy no peace. A new civil war will break out under far worse conditions than the last one.” Those close to him felt he had lost the desire to live much longer.
Caesar’s reluctance to show any signs of compromise and his refusal to share power with others explain the remarkable fact that so many leading members of the government joined the conspiracy to put an end to their leader. Besides Cassius and the much-trusted Marcus Brutus, who were both Praetors, there was Decimus Junius Brutus (a distant relative of Marcus), who was to be Consul in 42. The continuing silence of Mark Antony, now Consul, about his conversation with Trebonius speaks louder than words. AS the final plans for the assassination were laid, the conspirators spent some time pondering what to do about Antony. The fact that he was seen as a potential sympathizer was a reason for not making him a target alongside Caesar. However, Cassius argued that he should be killed along with Caesar: he was a physically strong man and might intervene to help the Dictator. Also, he and Caesar were Consuls and he would be the senior official after the assassination. If he were out of the way, Brutus and Cassius, as Praetors, would be able to take charge of the government legally. Brutus disagreed: it was one thing, he said, to kill a tyrant but quite another to kill a lawfully appointed Consul. It was finally agreed that Trebonius would isolate Antony at the crucial moment by intercepting him before the meeting and holding him in conversation.
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