DEATH OF A DICTATOR

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27914, 10 March 1956, Page 11

DEATH OF A DICTATOR

The Ides Of March 2000 Years Ago

[Specially written for "The Press” by GORDON TROUP]

In another March, exactly 2000 years ago, Rome was feverish with rumours, plans and conspiracy. Cains Julius Caesar had unified the West with his sword, was organising it with his genius and pacifying it with his magnanimity. “Caesar, the nickname for babies with heads so large that they were born, like him, by caesarean section, was on the way to becoming a kingly title. Cains Julius, the aristocratic scamp who had espoused the popular party (as well as many of the most desirable ladies of all parties) the penniless spendthrift who bequeathed a fortune to his citizens, the orator and author who late in life discovered in himself the qualities of generalship, was planning at the end of March to launch a campaign against the Parthians which xvould, had he not been launched on a vaster voyage, have added I ersia and India to the quiescent West.

In those last and fateful days, the < urbane 58-year-old dictator was wear- 1 ing somewhat thin. The glamour of a 1 Mountbatten, a Churchill, and a ’ Brunel, all rolled Into one. was being ' dimmed by a familiarity and a touch ' of arrogance. Satirical sentences were 1 being chalked on the walls of public 1 buildings faster than the political 1 police could clean them off. Caesar, who had grown progressively with 1 each new, tremendous experience, was ' tapering off into testiness and infalli- ■ bility. The senatorial leaders who had ( fought against him and been captured had all been pardoned, promoted, and 1 set to work on civil or militarj' jobs, but small men find forgiveness the hardest thing to forgive, and Caesar s mercy rankled more than the methodical savagery of Sulla. So the scribblings begot mutterings, and the muttering. conspiracy. Caius Cassius Longinus, the “lean and hungry” Cassius of Shakespeare, had started two abortive conspiracies before. He had erved in the Parthian campaign under Crassus, and in the navy under Pompeius, surrendering with his fleet after Pharsalia and receiving Caesars invariable pardon. He was a man in whose constructed belly pardon would turn sour. Doubtless his ambition chafed at the praetorian post, junior to that of the younger Brutus, to which Caesar had appointed him. Doubtless, too, his cupidity rebelled at the meagre prospects of enrichmert that the ensuing provincial command would hold, under Caesar’s supervision. He gathered a group of discontented senators variously estimated at 30 to 80 strong. No doubt some of them thought of “liberty” as something more than mere freedom to misgovern and extort; but the indiscipline of the gang and its imprudence and indecision speak of a lack of over-riding purpose or ideal. Cassius tried to bring in Marcus Antonius. who had previously conspired against Caesar and been forgiven, and who would have imposed a certain drive and discipline upon the group. But when, from prudence or loyalty or both, Antony stood aloof. Cassius turned his efforts to engrafting some idealism on the motley crew by bringing in the incorruptible Marcus Brutus. Brutus An Idealist Brutus was something considerably less than, the sympathetic poet-philo-sopher of Shakesp _are’s play, but he was still an idealist, if a rather stodgy, stiff and unsociable one. At 35, ne was to all intents an old man, with ’ the airs and aloofness of an elder statesman, and a moderate record of service in Pompey’s army. Caesar had pardoned him. promoted him, and loaded him with evidences of high personal regard. Many whispered that he was indeed Caesar's illegitimate son. but the evidence is against this. Caesar affectionately called him “my son,” but the filiation was figurative, and the affection an attraction of opposites. if Brutus whitewashed the facade of the conspiracy, he also dissolved the stiffest of its mortar. He vetoed the killing of Antony, which would have been a sensible precaution to ensure that the monarchy, as well as the monarch, was extirpated. Led by Brutus, the consoirators boasted to their friends and confided in their wives, and their identities and plans became widely Mown. and ascertainable, if not familiar, to Caesar himself. He had recently disbanded his bodyguard, after the senators (O irony!) had sworn jointly and severally to protect him; and he had de-

dared that his life was of more value to his country than to himself, for if he disappeared, there would be civil war. He was also reported to have remarked that it was better to die than to live in constant apprehension of death, that he had lived long enough, and that the most desirable end was the least expected one. However this may be, it is certain that two implaccable an< impalpable conspirators were peeping over the shoulders and breathing down the necks of their corporeal colleagues. One was the Spirit of Rome, more inexorable than Chronos to devour its young, that had ne.’er brooked a monarch since Lucius Junius Brutus had driven out King Tarquinius Sextus in 509 8.C.. thet had sent Scipio Africanus into exile. Sulla into retirement, and the Messianic brothers Gracchus to martyrdom. Caesar could not be blind to that ominous conspirator. nor to its fellow. Destiny or Providence, call it what you will. With our hindsight it is easy to see that Caesar’s work and organisation would be transitory until he had sealed them with his blood. Politically. the tyrannicide was inept; spiritually it was inevitable. A Judas Embrace There was now no time to be lost. Caesar was to ’eave for the Parthian campaign on Marc''. 17. After that, he would oe secure in the bosom of his army. The 15th (the Ides) was the last day of a senate meeting before his departure. Caesar was inveigled into the senate house and the faithful Antony from his side. Tillius Cimber made a specious plea for yet another pardon. Imprisoning Caesar’s arms in a Judas embrace, he gave the signal to his fellow assassins. Casca aimed a wild blow that damaged himself more than Caesar. Then the blows rained down on the dictator Fighting furiously at first, then recognising his destiny and enfolding himself decently in his toga, he fell at the base of Pompey’s statue, pierced by three and twenty wounds. By a second Caesarian section he had been born into an ampler field of action and influen *e. His work was now immortal, invincible. His slayers, in the brief interval before they turned their swords upon themselves or on each other, \ ould take the posts he had appointed tnem in his will. His plans would orevail over the tempor- • ary chaos they had invoked. He would ! give the world a long breathing-space • which would ensure tnat the legacy of ? both Greece and aome would be in--1 extricably and imptrishably implanted ’ in men’s minds and wills. The em- ’ pire he engendered would live for 500 I years. And his life and work, after I two millenia, still stand unrivalled as 1 the supreme achievement of the naked. 1 balanced, humane and unflinching will ■ of man.