The Ides of March Read online

  In her conduct I see reflected also a matter which I have frequently discussed with you, perhaps too often—the fact that the usage and very structure of our language exhibits and inculcates the belief that we are passive in the presence of life, bound, committed, and helpless. Our language tells us that we are given such and such qualifications at birth. That is to say: there is a Great Giver who gave Clodia beauty, health, wealth, high birth, and conspicuous intelligence and to another slavery, disease, and stupidity. She has often heard it said that she was endowed with beauty (by what endower?) and that another was cursed with a sharp tongue—did God curse? Even if we assume the existence of a God who, as Homer says, pours out from his urns his good and evil gifts, I am amazed at the pious who insult their God by failing to see that as this world is run there is a field of circumstance that is not commensurate with God’s providence and that God must have so intended it.

  But to return to our Clodia: the Clodias under such a dispensation never receive enough; they are poisoned by resentment against this niggardly Giver who has only given them beauty, health, wealth, birth, and intelligence, who is holding back a million gifts, namely, perfect felicity in every moment of every day. There is no rapacity equal to that of the privileged who feel that their advantages have been conferred upon them by some Intelligence and no bitterness equal to that of the ill-conditioned who feel that they have been specifically passed over.

  Oh, my friend, my friend, what better thing could I do for Rome than to put the birds back into the world of birds, thunder back into the phenomena of the atmosphere and the Gods back into the memories of infancy?

  I need hardly say we are not attending Clodia’s dinner.

  IV The Lady Julia Marcia, widow of the great Marius, from her farm in the Alban Hills, to her nephew Caius Julius Caesar in Rome.

  [September 4.]

  Clodius Pulcher and his sister have invited me to dinner on the last day of the month; they tell me, my dear boy, that you will be there. I had not intended coming into town until December when I must take up my duties in connection with the Mysteries [of the Good Goddess]. Naturally, I would not think of going to that house without the assurance that you and your dear wife would be there also. Will you return one word by this messenger as to whether you will really be present or not?

  I must confess that I am not a little curious to see—after all these years of rustication—how that Palatine Hill society lives. The scandalized letters I receive from Sempronia Metella and Servilia and Aemilia Cimber and Fulvia Manso are not of much help. They are so busy calling attention to their own virtue that I cannot make out whether the daily round at the top of the world is brilliant or trivial.

  I have another reason for seeing Clodia Pulcher, also. It may be that, sooner or later, I shall be obliged to have a very serious conversation with her—for her mother’s and grandmother’s sakes, dear friends of my youth and middle years. Can you divine what I mean? [As will be seen, Caesar did not grasp this intimation. His aunt was on the Governing Board of the Mysteries of the Good Goddess. If the proposal arose that Clodia be disbarred from participation in the Mysteries, the decision would rest largely with the lay committee and not with the representatives from the College of the Vestal Virgins. The final responsibility would devolve, however, upon Julius Caesar himself, as Supreme Pontiff.]

  We country bumpkins are prepared to obey precisely all your laws against luxury. Our little communities love you and give thanks to the Gods daily that you are guiding our great State. There are six of your veterans on my farm. The diligence and cheerfulness and loyalty which they show to me are a reflection, I know, of their worship of you. I try not to disappoint them.

  Give my love to Pompeia.

  [Second letter in the same packet.]

  My dear Nephew, this is the next morning.

  Forgive my presumption in taking the time of the master of the world, but may I ask you a second question to be answered by this messenger?

  Is Lucius Mamilius Turrinus still living? Can he receive letters? Can you give me an address for him?

  I have put these questions to a number of my friends, but no one seems to be able to answer them with certainty. We know that he was gravely wounded fighting beside you in Gaul. Some say he is living in complete seclusion in the lake country, in Crete, or in Sicily. Others say that he has been dead for a number of years.

  I had a dream the other night—you will pardon an old woman—in which I seemed to be standing by the pool of our villa at Tarentum, with my dear brigand of a husband beside me. Two boys were swimming in the pool—yourself and Lucius. You came up out of the water, and putting his hands on your shoulders my husband looked deep into my eyes and said smiling: “Saplings of our great Roman oak.”

  How often you both came to our house. You spent the whole day hunting. And what enormous dinners you ate. And do you remember how, at the age of twelve, you used to declaim Homer to me, your eyes flashing. And then you and Lucius went off to Greece together to study, and you wrote me long letters about philosophy and poetry. And Lucius, who had no mother, wrote to your mother.

  Oh, the past, the past, Caius.

  I woke from that dream weeping, weeping for those lost presences, my husband, your mother, Clodia’s father and mother, and for Lucius.

  Oh, dear, I am wasting your time.

  Two answers: Clodia’s dinner: and Lucius’s address, if he lives.

  IV-A Caesar’s reply to Julia Marcia, by return messenger.

  [The first two paragraphs are in the handwriting of a secretary.]

  I have no intention, my dear Aunt, of going to Clodia’s dinner. If I thought there were anything of real interest for you there, I would of course oblige you by going. Pompeia, however, joins me in urging you to come to us on that evening. It may be that Clodia has had the effrontery to invite Cicero and he may have had the weakness to accept; if so, I shall steal him from her party and offer him up to you. I think you will like to see him again; he is even wittier than he used to be and he can tell you all about the society on the Palatine Hill. Moreover, do not take the trouble to open your house; the pavilion in our garden is at your disposal and Al-Nara will be delighted to wait on you. While you are in the pavilion, my dear lady, I shall direct that during the night watches the sentrymen refrain from clashing their swords; they shall exchange their passwords in a whisper.

  You will see enough of Clodia when you come to town for the Ceremonies. Contemplating Clodia I find scarcely a drop in my heart of that compassion which Epicurus enjoins us to extend toward the erring. I hope you will have those serious talks with her, of which you speak, and I hope you will show me how I may find my way to some sympathy toward her. I am rendered uncomfortable by the dryness within my heart toward one to whom I have been bound by so wide a variety of associations.

  [Here Caesar continues the letter in his own hand:]

  You talk of the past.

  I do not let my thoughts dwell on it for long. All of it, all of it, seems of a beauty that I shall not see again. Those presences, how can I think of them? At the memory of one whisper, one pair of eyes, the pen falls from my hand, the interview in which I am engaged turns to stone. Rome and her business become a clerk’s task, arid and tedious, with which I fill my days until death relieves me of it. Am I peculiar in this? I do not know. Can other men weave past joy into their thoughts in the present and their plans for the future? Perhaps only the poets can; they alone use all of themselves in every moment of their work.

  I think that such a one has come among us to replace our Lucretius. I am enclosing a sheaf of his verses. I want you to tell me what you think of them. This mastership of the world which you ascribe to me is more worth administering since I have seen these examples of what our Latin tongue can do. I am not enclosing the verses which have reference to myself; this Catullus is as eloquent in hatred as in love.

  There is a present awaiting you in Rome—though my share in it will cost me some of that application to my pres
ent duties which, as I have said, follows upon any return I may make to the past. [Into the monthly Commemoration of the Founding of the City Caesar introduced a salutation rendered by Rome to the spirit of her husband Marius.]

  As to your second question, my dear Aunt, I am not in a position to answer it.

  Pompeia sends her love. We await your coming with much joy.

  V The Lady Sempronia Metella, in Rome, to the Lady Julia Marcia on her farm in the Alban Hills.

  [September 6.]

  I can’t tell you how delighted I am, my dearest Julia, to hear that you are coming to the City. Don’t trouble to open your house. You must stay with me. Zosima, who adores the ground you walk on, will wait on you; I can get on very well with Rhodope who is turning out to be a treasure.

  Now make yourself comfortable, dear, because I’m afraid this is going to be a very long chat.

  First, do listen to an old old friend’s advice: don’t go to that woman’s house. One can go on saying for years that one doesn’t listen to gossip, that the absent cannot defend themselves from slander, etc., etc.; but, after all, isn’t the provocation of so much gossip an offense in itself? I personally don’t believe that she poisoned her husband or that she has had improper relations with her brothers, but thousands do believe it. My grandson tells me that songs about her are sung in all the garrisons and taverns and verses about her are scribbled over all the Baths. There’s a nickname for her in everyone’s mouth which I won’t venture to put down here.

  Really, the worst thing one knows about her is the influence she has over that whole Palatine set. It was she who began this business of dressing up as one of the people and mingling with the lowest elements of the city. She takes her friends out to the gladiators’ taverns and drinks all night with them, and dances for them, and I leave the rest to your imagination. She makes up picnic parties, Julia, and goes to the taverns out in the country among the herdsmen and the military posts out there. These are facts. One of the results of this anyone can see: it’s the effect on the language; it’s now smart to talk pure pleb. And there’s no doubt that she and she alone is responsible. Her position in society, her birth, her wealth, her beauty, and—for one must confess it—her fascination and intelligence have led society right down into the mud.

  But at last she is frightened. And she has asked you to dinner because she is frightened.

  Now listen: a very serious thing is brewing and one which will finally fall upon your shoulders for a decision.

  [In the following paragraphs a number of substitute expressions are employed: The Ox-eyed (in Greek) is Clodia; The Wild Boar is her brother, Clodius Pulcher; The Quail (a soubriquet conferred upon her by the ladies long before her marriage) is Pompeia, Caesar’s wife; The Thessalian (short for the Witch of Thessaly) is Servilia, the mother of Marcus Junius Brutus; and The Tapestry Class is both the Mysteries of the Good Goddess and the committee that directed their celebration. The Weathermaker is, of course, Caesar.]

  Abandoned though this woman is, I don’t believe in debarring her from certain reunions; but there’s no doubt that her disbarment is going to be proposed. She and The Quail were present at the last meeting of the Executive Council which took place just before she went south to Baiae. They asked the Chair—The Thessalian was sitting in your chair—to excuse them and they left early; and the minute they were gone groups all over the hall began talking about her. Aemilia Cimber said that if The Ox-eyed stood anywhere near her during The Tapestry Class she would strike her in the face. Fulvia Manso said that she would not strike her during the rites, but that she would leave at once and submit a complaint to the Supreme Pontiff. And The Thessalian, who being in the Chair should not have given any opinion at all, said that the first thing to do was to lay the matter before you and the President of the College of the Vestal Virgins. Her indignant tone, I must say, struck me as slightly comical, for we all know that she has not always been as dignified as she now pretends to be.

  So there you are! I don’t think that you or your nephew would ever let her be disbarred, but what an idea! And what a scandal! You know, I don’t think even these older women realize any more what a scandal is. Last night I suddenly realized that within my memory there have been only three disbarments and in each case the woman immediately killed herself.

  And yet, on the other hand, it is a frightful thing to think that The Tapestry Class, which is the most beautiful and sacred and wonderful thing, should include a creature like The Ox-eyed. Julia, I have never forgotten what your great husband said about it: “Those twenty hours during which our women draw together are like a column upholding Rome.”

  It’s a great puzzle to all of us: why does The Weathermaker (I mean no disrespect, dear, as you know) allow The Quail to see so much of her? We are all so surprised by that. Because seeing The Ox-eyed inevitably entails seeing The Wild Boar, and no woman of principles could ever possibly want to see The Wild Boar.

  But let us change the subject.

  I received a great honor yesterday which I must tell you about. He singled me out to talk to me.

  I went, of course, with all Rome to call on Cato on the day commemorating his great ancestor. Thousands filled the streets near the house, trumpeters, flute players, priests. Inside the house the Dictator’s chair had been set up and, of course, everyone was agog. At last he came. And you know, my dear, how unpredictable he is! As my nephew says: he’s formal when you expect him to be informal, and informal when you expect him to be formal. He came walking through the Forum and up the hill without the sign of a retinue, just strolling between Marc Antony and Octavius. I tremble for him because it is dangerous; but that’s one of the things that the people really worship him for; that’s Old Rome, and you must have been able to hear the shouting from your own farm! He came into the house, bowing and smiling, and went right up to Cato and his family. Now you could hear an ant walk. Well, it’s no news to you that your nephew is a perfection. We could hear every word he said. First the gravity and the deference; even Cato was weeping and held his head very low. Then Caesar gradually became more informal; he included the family, and then he became very playful and very funny and soon the whole hall was laughing.

  Cato answered well, but very briefly. All the agonizing political differences seem to have been forgotten. Caesar accepted one of the cakes that were being passed around and then began addressing one bystander and then another. He refused to sit in the Dictator’s chair, but everything he does is so charming that it didn’t seem to be a slight on the house. And then, my dear, he espied me, and asking a servant for a chair he sat down beside me. You can imagine my state.

  Has he ever forgotten a fact or a name? He remembered having spent four days with us at Anzio twenty years ago, all my relatives and all the guests. He very delicately warned me about my grandson’s political activities (but what, my dear, can I do about that!). Then he began asking me my opinion of the monthly Commemoration of the Founding of the City. Apparently he had remarked my presence—think of it, at half a mile distance and while he was marching up and down in that complicated ritual! What portions did I find most impressive, which passages were too long or too obscure for the people? Then he got onto religion itself, the auspices and the lucky and unlucky days.

  Dear, he is the most charming man in the world, but also—I have to say it—isn’t he frightening? He listens with such total attention to every little thing one struggles to say. And those great eyes are so flattering, flattering and frightening. They seem to say: “You and I are the only really sincere people here; we say what we really mean; we tell the truth.” I hope I wasn’t a complete goose; but I wish someone had warned me that the Supreme Pontiff was going to ask me how, what, where, and when I think about religion, because that is what it finally came to. At last he took his leave and we could all go home. And I went straight to bed.

  I ask you in a whisper, Julia: what must it be like to be his wife?

  You asked me about Lucius Mamilius Turrinus.
/>   Like you, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know a thing about him. I assumed that he had died or that he had sufficiently recovered to hold some post in the remoter parts of the Republic. Now in search of information of this kind I have found out that the best thing to do is to ask one of our old trusted servants. They constitute a sort of secret society; they know everything about us; and they’re proud of all they know. So I consulted our old freedman Rufus Tela, and, sure enough, here are the facts:

  In the second battle with the Belgians, at the time that Caesar was almost caught, the enemy captured Turrinus. He had been gone thirty hours before Caesar realized that he was missing. Then, my dear, your nephew hurled a regiment at the enemy’s encampment. The regiment was almost annihilated, but it brought back Turrinus in a pitiable state. The enemy, in order to extract information from him, was progressively cutting off his limbs and depriving him of his senses. They had cut off an arm and a leg, perhaps more, put out his eyes, cropped his ears, and were about to burst his eardrums. Caesar saw that he received all possible care and since then he has been surrounded, by his own wish, with all possible secrecy. Rufus seems to know, though, that he lives in a beautiful villa on Capri, absolutely walled off. Of course, he’s still very rich and has a large household of secretaries, attendants, and all that.

  Isn’t that a simply heart-rending story? Can’t life be simply horrifying? I remember him so well—handsome, rich, capable, obviously destined for the highest places in the state, and so charming. He almost married my Aurunculeia, but his father and all those Mamiliuses were too conservative for me, to say nothing of my husband. Apparently, he is still interested in politics and history and literature. He has an agent here in Rome who sends him all the news and books and gossip, but no one knows who the agent is. He seems to wish to be forgotten by all except a few close friends. Of course, I asked Rufus who goes to see him. Rufus said that he receives almost no one; that the actress Cytheris occasionally goes and reads to him, and that once a year, in the spring, the Dictator goes and stays a few days, but apparently never mentions his visits to anyone.