all, I cursed, as a result of Caesar's moment of uncharacteristic panic. (It is fair to say that this may have been the result of an epileptic attack he had suffered a few days before.)
But… Caesar always declared that he was a favourite of the gods, and if ever a day proved this to be the case, it was Munda. Labienus' manoeuvre, admirably intelligent though it was, destroyed him. The rapid and unexpected deployment of the troops was remarked and misinterpreted by the men in his front lines. They did not realise that he was about to unleash the blow that would give them victory. Instead, they thought that it was the beginning of a general flight. Panic set in, rapidly as it always does. Except for one legion, which retreated in good order, and died fighting almost to the last man, the army of our enemy disintegrated.
I have never known a battle change so completely in such a short time.
One wing of the enemy army broke, fleeing to the safety of Cordova. The rest were thrown back into the ditch before the walls of Munda. There was no escape. Few prisoners were taken. Our legionaries were determined to make an end of the wars, then and there, that grey afternoon. They could not have been restrained from slaughter, even if that had been Caesar's wish. And it was not. For the first time in the civil wars no quarter was given.
'I have often fought for victory,' Caesar said as night fell on the field, whence the groans of the dying and the wounded still prevented the silence of night from descending, 'but this is the first time I ever fought for my life.'
It was reported that the enemy dead numbered almost thirty thousand. Among them was Labienus himself. I looked on that strong, proud, aggrieved countenance.
'He chose the path he has followed,' Caesar said.
That night Octavius came to my tent. He was pale and trembling.
'Well,' I said, 'that is war, the great destroyer of illusion.'
It was not quite the end. The two sons of Pompey had escaped the field. Sextus, it seemed, had found a refuge, none knew where. Gnaeus reached Gibraltar to find that all the ships were in Caesar's hands. He fled back from the coast, into the mountains. There he was discovered by a troop seeking fugitives from the battle. They found him wounded in a cave, deserted by all but a couple of slaves. He demanded clemency. Even in his extremity, I am told, he could not keep a note of arrogance from his voice. He received none. The soldiers made short work of him. As with his father, his head was cut off, and sent to Caesar.
Meanwhile Cordova had been besieged. The walls were stormed. More than twenty thousand soldiers and citizens were put to the sword. Antony was mighty in the slaughter, drunk on wine and blood-lust. The word 'clemency' rang in my ears like a mocking bell. We had journeyed far from that dawn on the banks of the Rubicon.
CHAPTER 9
What a strange thing is love, a word we commonly employ as a euphemism for sexual desire. My passion for Octavius had died. Its end was abrupt. A few nights after the sack of Cordova, he came to me in tears. He babbled in confusion. It seemed that Antony (who had been roaring drunk for a week) had tried to ravish him. The boy's tongue stumbled over the story; his beauty fled from him. I was seized with an impulse of cruelty, not tenderness. Even now, I cannot account for the violence of the change in my feeling. I looked on him with contempt, even disgust. He needed my help, perhaps. I had none to offer him. Something in me had snapped.
A few weeks later he left for Greece, to resume his studies, by Caesar's command. He went to join Maecenas; another companion was an ill-bred young officer, by name Marcus Agrippa. Well, I was relieved to see him depart. His presence had begun to embarrass me. There is nothing so dead as an infatuation from which you have recovered. As the months passed, something of tenderness returned. But when we corresponded, there was now a distance between us. There was nothing intimate in our letters, and I knew that when we met again, there would be a gulf between us, like a stretch of inhospitable coastland fringing the sea.
My mother always used to say that lust was a game the gods played to make fools of us, and amuse themselves. When she looked back on her own passion for Caesar, she could no longer understand how it had come about.
Is it the result of a trick of light, of the immediate disposition of limbs, lines, and posture?
How strange to perplex myself with this question now. For me, it has always been inseparable from some idea of degradation. My revulsion of Octavius puzzles me therefore.
Perhaps I was attracted by his freedom from experience. I do not know.
When I look on Artixes, I think this may be possible.
As it happened, I returned to Rome and surprised my wife Longina in bed with a curly headed boy. Both sat up, Longina displaying her delightful breasts. Surprise, then indignation, then fear, as he recognised me, could be read in the boy's face. I had no idea who he was. He looked even younger than my wife. Her tongue flicked her upper lip. Then she smiled.
'Husband,' she said. 'What a charming surprise,' she added in Greek.
'No wonder your freedwomen were alarmed to see me.' 'They should be whipped for letting you break in on me like this.'
She nestled back among the cushions and fluttered her eyelashes at me.
'Fair's fair,' she said. 'I bet you haven't been faithful to me in Spain. He's a friend of Caesar's,' she said to the boy, 'and you know what that means. Besides, he's been having the most tremendous thing with Octavius. Does that still go on, husband?'
'I could divorce you,' I said.
'Why bother?'
'I could have you whipped yourself. In the days of our ancestors I could have had you put to death.'
'Of course you could, but those days have gone. Besides, I know you better than you think. I'm not quite the mophead you take me to be. I've taken the trouble to find out a lot about you, husband, and I could give you quite a long list of your lovers, starting with that famous pair, Clodia and her brother. So don't pretend. Actually, I imagine you're enjoying this as much as I am.'
The trouble was, she was right. I found the situation exciting.
'Who's your friend?' I said.
She giggled.
'Can't you guess? We're more alike than you think, husband.'
I looked at the boy's tumbling curls, his lustrous eyes, his soft and at that moment trembling mouth. He was slim, and there was a hint of mischief even in his fear.
'Yes,' I said, 'I see a resemblance.'
The boy was Appius Claudius Pulcher, whose father had been consul ten years previously. That father, whom I had known to be proud, corrupt and superstitious (like so many of the clan) had fallen at Pharsalus in the ranks of the Pompeians, though he had despised Pompey himself. He had married his daughter to my cousin, Marcus Brutus, who, disgusted by her infidelity, had put her aside, in order to marry Cato's daughter Porcia, certainly a woman better suited to his priggish nature. This boy must be the fruit of his father's last marriage to a woman half his age whose name I couldn't recall. Appius Claudius Pulcher had hated Caesar. Looking at the boy I couldn't imagine he felt any powerful desire to avenge his father. He probably revelled in his freedom from paternal rebuke, which would certainly have been forthcoming.
There was a silence in the room. My wife appeared content, happy to enjoy what she had provoked. She wanted a scene. So I determined to deny her that. As for the boy, he had clearly got more than he bargained for. I was travel-stained, grim, returned from the wars, a general of renown, not — he must have thought — a safe man to be discovered cuckolding. I told him to get out of bed and dress himself. He obeyed; in some confusion, made uncomfortable by the gaze I directed at him. Then I escorted him to the door of the bedchamber.
'We shall say no more of this at present,' I said. 'You are ' not to be blamed. On the other hand, you must understand that you have insulted me. Before I determine what must be done, I must talk to my wife. Then you and I will have to talk also. For the moment, think yourself fortunate that I am not a man of the same temper as your late father.'
