cousin was quite deficient. To begin with, Octavius’s oratorical skills were not at all impressive, no matter what Caesar had thought.
Antonius was a far more polished and persuasive speaker, as he had shown when he delivered Caesar’s funeral oration before a huge crowd. The speech had been intensely dramatic yet remarkably subtle. Antonius never said a word against the killers, but by praising Caesar he moved his listeners to tears of grief and cries of outrage. Without directly saying so, he made the case that Roma had been defiled by the murder of a great leader, not liberated by the assassination of a tyrant. Antonius had also revealed one of the terms of Caesar’s will: From his vast personal fortune, Caesar had decreed a generous disbursement of seventy-five Attic drachmas to every citizen living in Roma. This had done much to sway the crowd against Caesar’s assassins.
But Antonius, too, had his faults, as Lucius had become all too aware in recent days. For one thing, he drank too much. In happier times, the man’s appetite for debauchery had impressed and even awed Lucius. Now it struck him as foolhardy; the jeopardy in which they found themselves demanded clear thinking. Antonius also had a streak of pettiness. His refusal to address Octavius as Caesar was perhaps understandable, because it raised a sore point: Octavius was the chief benefactor of Caesar’s will, while Antonius, to everyone’s surprise, had been left out of the will entirely. Nonetheless, Antonius’s repeated and deliberate baiting of Octavius served no one’s purpose.
The will was the crux of the matter. In it, Caesar posthumously adopted Octavius as his son, and bequeathed to him half his estate. The other half he divided equally between his nephew Quintus Pedius, who was still away from the city, and his great-nephew, Lucius Pinarius. So much for the special debt that Caesar had owed to Lucius on account of his grandfather’s sacrifice; Octavius had merited adoption, but not Lucius! Lucius had his own reasons to be resentful of Octavius, but he was determined to move past them.
The will had made no mention of Caesarion, Cleopatra’s son. Immediately after the assassination, the Egyptian queen vacated Caesar’s villa and sailed back to Alexandria.
Politically, it was left to Caesar’s long-time subordinates, Antonius and Lepidus, to uphold his edicts and maintain the order he had imposed on the state, but without the benefit of his dictatorial powers. The cooperation of Caesar’s heirs was vital to their cause. Each of the three cousins had inherited an enormous fortune, and each could exert a tremendous sentimental appeal to those who had supported Caesar and now mourned him. In return, the heirs needed the protection and experienced advice that Lepidus and, especially, Antonius could provide. Driven by necessity, this alliance had been uneasy from the start, rife with mutual suspicions and resentments, especially between Octavius and Antonius.
In the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination, Roma had become a cauldron of intrigue. The conspirators against Caesar numbered at least sixty men; some had taken part in the actual killing while others had only lent support. Should those men be declared criminals and brought to trial, or applauded as saviors of the Republic? Three days after the Ides of Martius, the Senate voted an amnesty for the assassins, drafted in careful language that neither acknowledged their guilt nor praised their patriotism.
Despite the Senate’s amnesty, fierce partisans on both sides had resorted to violence. An innocent tribune named Cinna, unlucky enough to be mistaken for one of the conspirators, had literally been torn apart by an angry mob; pieces of his body were scattered across the Forum. After gangs threatened to burn down the houses of Cassius and Brutus, both men left Roma to prematurely claim the provincial governorships that Caesar had scheduled for them.
This raised a further question: Were Caesar’s appointments still valid? Brutus and Cassius argued that Caesar was a tyrant and usurper. If that were so, how could any of his decrees be legally valid, including their own provincial appointments?
The legitimacy of every act by every magistrate was now routinely called into question by partisans of one side or the other. Who possessed legal authority, and by what right? Those who had hoped that Caesar’s death would result in a quick and harmonious restoration of senatorial power were bitterly disappointed. Roma was poised on a sword’s edge, ready to fall into chaos. After so many years of death and destruction, the outbreak of another civil war was an almost unbearable prospect, yet increasingly it seemed inevitable.
The future was fraught with uncertainty. The future was what Lucius and his cousin had come to the house of Antonius to discuss. Yet the discussion seemed to circle back endlessly to recriminations about things already past.
It was Octavius who broke the strained silence. “The conspirators should have been dealt with at once, immediately following the murder. You, Antonius, as consul, had the power to arrest them. You could have invoked the Ultimate Decree-”
“There were no senators left in the chamber to vote on such a proposal!”
“Even so, if, instead of fleeing to your house, you had taken immediate action against the men who killed my father-”
“If you think it would have been as easy as that, young man, then you’re even more naive than I thought, and you are certainly
“Enough!” said Lucius. “You both need to stop this squabbling and return to the matter at hand. Namely, the need to deal with Cassius and Brutus. It may or may not be possible to convince the Senate to declare that Caesar’s murder was a criminal act. Most of the senators seem inclined to mimic Cicero. They’ll avoid taking sides as long as possible, until they see how things fall out. For now, the Senate’s amnesty protects the assassins.
“However, it seems to me that the premature seizures by Cassius and Brutus of their provinces were unquestionably illegal. Those actions could be construed as hostile acts against the state, and thus lay them open to military action by you, Antonius, acting as consul.”
“If any military action is taken, Caesar must take part as well,” said Octavius, adopting his great-uncle’s habit of referring to himself in the third person-to Antonius’s disgust, as evidenced by the gritting of his teeth. “It’s Caesar’s fortune that can raise the troops. It’s Caesar’s name to which his veterans will swear loyalty. And if I am to command troops in the field, I must be given full consular authority.”
“Impossible!” said Antonius. “You’re far too young.”
“By what reckoning? My great-uncle appointed men to magistracies who were under the required age. Thus there is legal precedent-”
“An important point, cousin,” said Lucius. “We must be seen to follow the law. Any military action must be perceived as just and necessary. There must be no grounds for anyone to assert that we have initiated”-he hesitated even to say the words-“that we have initiated a civil war for personal gain or private revenge. We must win the support of the Senate, the legions, and the people. But how? It’s the sort of challenge at which Uncle Gaius excelled so brilliantly.”
Lucius took a deep breath. He looked from one man to the other. He had no illusions that he could assume Caesar’s mantle of leadership, but increasingly it seemed to him that neither Antonius nor Octavius was fit to do so either, no matter that one had been Caesar’s right-hand man and the other was his adopted son. They were barely able to keep peace between themselves.
As if to prove him right, both men began to speak at the same time. Neither would yield. Instead they raised their voices. Lucius clapped his hands over his ears.
“Marcus! Cousin Gaius! Be quiet and listen to what I have to say. You’re both ambitious men. You both have a craving to rule the state. Good for you! The gods admire ambition, especially in a Roman. But my ambition-my only ambition-is to avenge Caesar’s death. All the assassins must be declared outlaws. They must be hunted down. They must be killed. Brutus and Cassius are our foremost concern. I’m eager to take up arms against them. Put a sword in my hand, and I’ll readily serve under either of you-you, Gaius, or you, Marcus, I don’t care which! But I don’t believe either of you can see the task to completion without the other. I beg of you, stop this bickering and bend your wills to the common purpose!”
He stared at Antonius, who finally shrugged and nodded.
He stared at Octavius. His cousin raised an eyebrow. “You’re right, of course. Thank you, cousin Lucius. Such a clear-sighted sense of purpose is just what we need to keep us on course. Well, Antonius? Shall we get back to business?”
The discussion that followed was fruitful. Lucius was glad to have spoken out. But as he looked from Octavius to Antonius, he knew his words had not been entirely truthful. He had said he didn’t care which man he served under, but in his heart, there was no question which of them he preferred: the hot-blooded, plain-spoken, pleasure- loving, sometimes crude Antonius. Partly this was because of the affection the man had shown him. Partly it was because his cousin Gaius was so vain and cold-blooded. Antonius he could serve with enthusiasm. Octavius he
