Cicero - Anthony Everitt [5]
The Senate, however, had more serious business at hand—its last meeting under the Dictator before he departed from Rome on a military expedition to Parthia. It was due to be held not as usual in the Senate House in the Forum but in one of Rome’s most spectacular buildings, the 340-meter-long Theater of Pompeius just outside the city on the Field of Mars. During the first half of the morning, the Senators gathered in a ceremonial hall in the center of the complex.
Among the leading figures arriving at the theater was Marcus Tullius Cicero, now in his early sixties and by Roman standards an old man but still handsome, with full lips, a decisive nose and beetling brows. Rome’s most famous orator and one of the pillars of the Republican tradition, he was in theory in political retirement. Having sided against Julius Caesar in the recent civil war, he had reluctantly come to terms with the new regime. He still kept abreast of events. A witty man, he could seldom resist making topical jokes, often at the most inopportune moments. At the moment he was worrying about what new flattering honor the Senate might be preparing to award Caesar.
When Cicero got out of his litter, surrounded by hangers-on waiting for his latest bon mot, he noticed leading members of the government mingling with the crowd. There was Marcus Junius Brutus, a member of one of Rome’s oldest families and a favorite of Caesar’s. He was joined by Caius Cassius Longinus, who had just arrived after being delayed by his son’s coming-of-age ceremony. They were soon deep in a private conversation. An acquaintance interrupted them, whom Cicero heard to say mysteriously that he hoped they would accomplish what they had in mind, but that they should hurry. Brutus and Cassius reacted nervously and seemed ill at ease.
A rumor suddenly went round the gathering dignitaries that Caesar would not be attending the sitting after all. He and his wife had passed a restless night and both had had bad dreams. His doctors were advising him to stay at home, fearing a recurrence of the dizzy fits from which he suffered. Furthermore, the omens from the morning’s animal sacrifice were discouraging.
Nevertheless, the great man at last arrived at about eleven o’clock, wearing the gold-bordered purple toga and high red boots that generals wore at their victory ceremonies. Fifty-six years old, he was tall, fair and well-built, with a broad face and keen, dark brown eyes. Years of ceaseless campaigning had left their mark on his constitution and he looked older than his years. Known for his personal vanity, he kept his thinning hair neatly trimmed and his face shaved. (According to gossip, he was also in the habit of depilating his pubic hair.)
The Senators, who had been standing around talking, walked into the hall ahead of Caesar, but one of them came up to him and engaged him briefly in animated conversation. Meanwhile, Mark Antony, the Dictator’s right-hand man, was detained in an anteroom by someone with urgent business.
Caesar was moving away from his litter when a teacher of public speaking whom he knew, a certain Artemidorus, confronted him. He handed over a note which he said should be read immediately. The Dictator was struck by the urgency in the man’s voice and kept the letter in his hand, though the pressure of the occasion put the document out of his mind and he was never to read it.
Most Senators settled down on their benches, but a number stood around Caesar’s gilded ceremonial chair. AS an elder statesman, Cicero had a place of honor on a front bench. Meanwhile, outside the theater, further sacrifices were being conducted. Once more the slaughtered victims revealed unfavorable signs and more animals had to be brought forward, one after another, to see if better omens could be found. Caesar, losing patience, turned away and faced west, supposedly an unlucky direction.
A religious official who had previously warned him that the Ides of March would bring danger caught Caesar