Dreams of Empire
The Fall of the Roman Republic
by Addison Hart
Pharsalus
The night sky late on August 8th, 48 BC, was suddenly host to a literal ball of
fire, some said a fiery torch, flung into the air, twisting about in the sky,
slamming down somewhere off in the darkness. The object had come, it seemed,
from the direction of the camps of Julius Caesar, and had been heading straight
for the camps of Gnaeus Pompeius. Obviously, within seconds of the appearance of
the fiery body, the Pompeians began to scramble about under the stars. They were
preparing for an attack that they knew would sooner or later come. It seemed
that Caesar was finally going to end this civil war once and for all. The very
next day, August the 9th, the Consul/Dictator of Rome did just that.
When Pompey awoke the next morning (assuming he even managed sleep on that
rather hectic night), he knew that this was the day old Caesar would come, and
he knew that he would definitely be defeated by this veteran army, despite the
words of General Titus Labienus, a veteran of the Gallic Wars, who felt that
Caesar was just as unprepared as Pompey. All the same, Pompey had 40,000 men
with him, Caesar only sported 22,000. Pompey's army was flung out around this
mountainous region of the very mountainous province of Greece. None other than
Ahenobarbus commanded the left wing of the army. Labienus' cavalry and all of
Pompey's archers were positioned nearby. Pompey himself was at this part of the
field in his observation post. Two legions of Italians and Syrians formed the
center. Publius Scipio commanded this portion of the army. To the right, along
the river Enipeus, sat the remains of Afranius' troops, under the command of L.
Lentulus Crus.
Caesar launched the attack in the sunlight, a Centurion, Crastinus, lead the
shock troops forward, slamming into Pompey's green troops. The brave Centurion
gave a final cry to Caesar before leading his century on into his enemy,
apparently cutting several of his enemies down before he fell with a sword swing
to the mouth. With a toss of the old javelin, Caesar invited Pompey's cavalry
onward. The horsemen struck Caesar's right. Under a hail of pila, Pompey's brave
men stopped in their tracks, and Caesar's Gallic veterans came forward. "Face to
face and even able to speak to each other, they recognized their adversaries and
called to them by name," reports Dio Cassius. In the midst of the slaughter that
began, there were soon shouted messages from the wounded to the unhurt, last
minute messages to the family, and last minute insults to the enemy. "The cries
of the foreigners were unintelligible and caused a deep terror." Within a short
time, Pompey's right wing had been destroyed, most of his archers and slingers
slaughtered where they stood. As Plutarch wrote, "They were the flower of Roman
and Italian youth." Ahenobarbus, Caesar's old foe, had fallen in the midst of
the battle. Labienus had managed an escape with his cavalry, however. Caesar,
upon seeing the dead men in Pompey's camp, gave a groan. "This is what they
wanted!" Now, with the right wing of Pompey's army literally crushed, the left
wing began to crumble. In a short time, it too was gone. The center, bravely
holding on in the phalanx formation, finally had to break under the pressure of
Caesar's relentless attacks on all sides. Pharsalus was over. Caesar had won.
Scipio and Cato would be pursued with their troops on further, though ultimately
both would perish violently, Cato taking his own life with a knife to the chest,
much to the regret of the dictator. Pompey, however, had escaped.
As Caesar's men mopped up Pompeian resistance and searched for the body of the
former triumvir and general that they were sure lay slain on the field, Pompey
ripped off his uniform, dressing as a common waif, and with his friends hijacked
a small boat, sneaking away as the battle came to a close. When Caesar finally
realized that his enemy had eluded him, Pompey was off for Egypt. Caesar was
quick to pursue with a body of his men, but it seemed that they'd lost him.
Unfortunately, though Pompey had eluded old Caesar, he hadn't made it to safety
yet. His former Egyptian ally, Cleopatra VII, was out it seemed. Her much
younger (and more impressionable) brother Ptolemy had, with the assistance of
his henchmen, booted the young queen off the throne, and had set himself up as
Pharaoh, though his advisors, men such as General Achillas, Theodotus, and
Pothinus the eunuch, were the real power behind the boy's throne. Ptolemy XIII
soon had to make the decision of bringing in old Pompey (as well as bringing in
the wrath of Caesar), or, quite literally, to kill him. He chose, regretfully,
the latter.
After arriving at the port of Alexandria in his small boat, Pompey sent out a
messenger to Ptolemy asking if he might be allowed in to claim sanctuary from
Caesar's armies. Though Pompey must have felt that he was now far from the
madding crowd, the advisors of the king simply decided that the best way to
please Caesar and to keep out of a Roman war would be, quite simply, to go kill
the fugitive before Caesar even got anywhere near Egypt. The advisors sent a
group of men down to greet him. Among that group were two of Pompey's old
comrades. Seeing them from the boat, Pompey brought the boat closer to the
shore. A group of men jumped aboard to greet him. As Pompey stooped over to look
at one of his speeches that he intended to give to the Pharaoh, one of these men
suddenly sheathed his dagger in Pompey's back. Within seconds of the first
attack on his person, more men rushed into the boat, bearing down on him with
sword and dagger. In a rather short period of time, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus,
Pompey the Great was dead. Slicing off the general's head, the men left the
boat, Pompey's body stripped naked, lying in the center of the rickety old
thing. After a few hours, the boat and the body were cremated together. The head
(preserved in brine) was sent off to Caesar, the 'delivery-man' who handed him
the pate, along with a signet ring of Pompey's, made the quite foolish remark,
"Dead men don't bite". After one look, Caesar buried his face in his hands,
bursting into tears.
The Little War
Even though Pompey was dead, his sons weren't. Gnaeus Jr., Quintus, and Sextus
each had their own armies and navies, and indeed, ruled the Mediterranean Sea.
Kings like Pharnaces of Pontus, Juba I, and generals like Titus Labienus were
still on the loose, and were fighting for the Pompeians, dominating North
Africa. Caesar's work, it seemed, was far from finished. As his troops took on
Pharnaces, Juba, and the bunch, Caesar himself was called to settle a political
dispute in Egypt. Pompey's one-time ally, Cleopatra VII, was back in Egypt, and
stirring up trouble for Ptolemy XIII and the rest of the Pharonic family.
However, the relatively uninterested Caesar so irritated the young king that he
blockaded his small force within the very palace of Alexandria. Caesar, it
seemed, was now a virtual prisoner to this little brat. So began the Alexandrian
War and a short war it would be. During the winter, Caesar met with Cleopatra,
smuggled into the palace it seemed, some early historians claiming that she had
been rolled up in a carpet for old Caesar. Whether Cleopatra was a knock-dead
gorgeous gal as she has been depicted in film and painting, Caesar was obviously
enchanted by her and, despite the fact that he was already married to Calpurnia,
in a short period of time the young queen was pregnant with Caesar's one and
only (known) natural son. Caesar, it seemed, had melted down (due to the queen's
affections) from a tough, Mars-like general into a warm, cuddly little buck, and
Cleopatra was going to take full advantage of it. Caesar and Cleopatra, having
now created their infamous alliance, had gained the total hatred of Achillas and
Pothinus (who plotted Caesar's murder) and the royal tyke, and their own troops
were soon literally skirmishing with Caesar's 3,000 in the streets of
Alexandria. In one fight, the Great Library itself was destroyed. These tough
street fights were wearing down Caesar's small force in Egypt, and things were
becoming increasingly jeopardous for him. Though such lieutenants as Marcus
Antonius and Marcus Lepidus were out there defeating the enemy, this blasted
blockade of Ptolemy's was being assisted by the Pompeians, who eagerly rammed
all Caesarian ships they could locate. In these circumstances, nothing could get
through. Pothinus at least was dead, executed by Cleopatra. Caesar, however, was
in grave danger; an attempt on his life had already been made at the Pharos
Lighthouse. Was Caesar, the conqueror of Gaul and Pompey, doomed to die in a
street fight at the hand of the subject of a spoiled little brat?
Amazingly, within a very short amount of time, the Alexandrian War came to a
very quick and violent end. A wealthy little Syrian named Mithridates of
Pergamum, and Antipater, a member of the government of Judaea, had slipped
through the Egyptian blockade in a daring run. Amazingly, the Oriental army
landed itself in Alexandria, fighting it's way through the streets, past
Ptolemy's bodyguard and the Alexandrian mob towards the palace. Joined by
Caesar's troops, the armies became one, and, under Caesar's direction, they set
out after Ptolemy and Achillas, whom were building their own army. Catching
members of the royal family such as Cleopatra's youngest brother, and her sister
Arsinoe, they turned onward down the Nile to vanquish Ptolemy XIII. The Nile
Delta, Egypt's source of life, was soon the spot of the showdown that ended the
war. Achillas and Ptolemy were woefully undermanned when compared to Caesar, and
to boot none of these troops had received half as much training as the men of
the great dictator had. The King of Egypt, Ptolemy XIII, didn't stand a chance.
In a short battle, the Egyptians were mowed down, the waters turning red with
the blood of hundreds of Egyptian troops. Achillas was caught near the end of
the action, and was executed on the spot, a single swing of a Roman sword
separating his head from his neck. The battle had become an abysmal slaughter.
Near the end of the action the boy king himself was found face down in the Nile.
No sword or dagger had finished him. He'd simply drowned.
After the confrontation, the crown passed from the drowned Ptolemy XIII to his
youngest brother, who would become Ptolemy XIV, and who would also become
Cleopatra's new husband, despite the great difference in age. Young Ptolemy
wasn't the true ruler of Egypt. The co-regent, Caesar's favorite, Cleopatra, was
the real power behind the throne. Caesar spent the next two months on
Cleopatra's golden barge, on a tour of the Nile itself. While he sat with the
queen in her large beds, or ran about the barge's five fine restaurants, Caesar
watched as many of his old enemies were simply annihilated by his lieutenants.
After Cleopatra bore Caesar a son, Ptolemy Caesarion, on June 23rd, 47 BC,
Caesar was off again to defeat his enemy. After a brief stay in Judaea, Caesar
joined his armies, marching on Pharnaces of Pontus. In a very short amount of
time, with the assistance of Asander, Caesar completely defeated old Pharnaces,
who was murdered before he could get to safety. Caesar remarked after the final
battle at Zela, "Veni, Vidi, Vici," "I came, I saw, I conquered." Over the next
two years, Caesar spent all of his time wrecking the remainder of the Pompeian
force, taking back North Africa and Numidia (much to the chagrin of Juba, who
ordered his slaves to do him in when he was informed of his defeat), and then
Spain. Gnaeus and Sextus Pompey had arrived there in 46 BC, raising an army with
the assistance of Titus Labienus. In 45 BC, Caesar won the final battle. Scipio
was dead, as well as Cato, dead at Thapsus in the year 46, the latter's end
coming unmercifully slow after a botched attempt at falling on his sword. Gnaeus
Pompeius the Younger was caught, and then, on Caesar's orders, he was beheaded.
The city of Munda, garrisoned by Labienus, had fallen, Labienus himself falling
in the thick of the combat. Caesar, it seemed, had won the final victory.
The Great Dictator
Politically this was also the case. By the end of 45 BC, Caesar had been
dictator thrice, and Consul four times. As 44 BC came about, Caesar would become
Consul for the fifth time, and, much to the horror of many conservative
senators, dictator for life. The dictator's word, it seemed was law. Even the
Roman calendar was not above him. Long in need of a change, the ancient, though
inaccurate Roman calendar was toppled by Caesar, and in it's place he instituted
his own calendar, 'the Julian Calendar'. He even added a whole new month to the
old calendar, naming it July, after, well, who else but himself? He also
decided, for heaven knows what reason, to be lenient on his conquered enemies.
Perhaps he thought that the supporters of the Senate would flock to him, seeing
him as by far a more kind and compassionate overlord. Whatever the case, he let
his enemies be, and became, well, careless, running about the city itself
without so much as a bodyguard. That, you might say, is simply inviting trouble.
Of course, Caesar was no fool. His public service works seemed to be gaining
some admiration for him. Perhaps even crusty old Cicero, that old champion of
citizen's rights, was somewhat pleased with the new calendar. Caesar was quickly
gaining support in Italia through his plans (never carried out) to build dikes
to keep the sea from washing over Ostia, the port of Rome, or clearing the
shipping routes of hidden reefs, and to construct more ports and roads for
transportation and trade. "All these things he had in preparation," writes
Plutarch. In celebration of his victories, he held lavish gladiatorial shows,
including huge "sham battles of ships, cavalry, infantry, elephants, and with
public banquets extending over many days," as Paterculus records. "He celebrated
five triumphs [victory parades]. The furnishings for his Gallic triumph were of
citrus, for his Ponthic of acanthus, for his African of ivory, and for his
Spanish of polished silver." He brought home more than six hundred million
sesterces worth of spoils.
Of course, at the same time he severely tested the people at home. Firstly, he
brought home with him the Egyptian royals, Cleopatra, her brother Ptolemy, and,
of course, her child (and Caesar's), Caesarion. This not only disgusted a good
number of Romans, but it showed to them that Caesar had betrayed his wife, the
long-suffering Calpurnia. If this wasn't bad enough, he put up a golden statue
of Cleopatra in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, right in the Forum of Caesar
itself! To rub salt in the wounds of the conservatives, it was painfully obvious
that Caesar was fixing to go one step beyond dictator, to become, of all things,
a king of Rome. Rome had tossed away the monarchy in the early 400s, and was not
about to simply give Caesar the crown. While many still supported Caesar, a good
number were wary of him, especially when he tried the rigged-up 'turning down
the crown' routine. After the Senate grudgingly gave him the position as
dictator for life, a position only given to someone in the most hopeless
emergency, Caesar proved that he wanted the laurel wreath to be planted about
his cranium once and for all. This new imperator, wearing the purple robes, the
laurel crown, and carrying the scepter of the victorious general, was approached
on the feast of the Lupercalia (February 15th, 44 BC) by Marcus Antonius, the
second consul, bearing the diadem, offering it to Caesar. It was, of course, a
set-up, but one that Caesar himself had come up with, in order to see how the
citizenry would react to him actually taking the diadem and becoming king. When
only the several plants in the crowd clapped, Caesar shook his head dramatically
in refusal. He was, of course, very reluctant to do so.
Strangely enough, along the boot of Italia, support began to grow for Caesar to
actually become king, and no doubt the idea of becoming Gaius Iulius Caesar Rex
was attractive to the dictator. However, the more the liberal citizenry began to
push for Caesar's acceptance, the more the Senate became wary of the old, bald
general. Slowly, the idea of simply killing old Caesar became slightly more
attractive to several members of the Senate. In particular, it became attractive
to General C. Cassius Longinus, Servillus Casca, and Tullius Cimber. Longinus
hated Caesar for blocking his path to becoming Consul; Cimber had a better
reason. Caesar had exiled his brother for being a Pompeian. Slowly, another man
was recruited, Marcus Junius Brutus, the speaker, and a member of the late
Cato's family. He and Cassius had fought Caesar on the side of the Pompeians,
and all were afraid of Caesar becoming a king. It simply wouldn't do. As the now
fifty-six year old Caesar planned an invasion of Parthia, slotted for mid 44 BC,
which he promised would avenge Crassus and take back the banners of the
destroyed legions, the Senators planned to assassinate the dictator. As more and
more Senators joined in the plot (including friends of Caesar, men such as
Decimus Brutus and Gaius Trebonius) Caesar, for the first time began to worry.
When rumors reached him that Antonius and General Dolabella might be planning a
rebellion, Caesar responded "I am not much afraid of these fat, long-haired
fellows, but more of those pale lean ones," meaning, of course, Cassius and
Brutus.
Odd events occurred in the early days of March, 44 BC. As the poet Horace
recorded: "the sheeted dead/ did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets." Horace
would know. He was there. Plutarch tells us of loud cries that were heard in the
night, flaming men "moving in", a soldier's slave "who threw a mass of flame off
his hand and seemed to onlookers to be burning himself…yet when the flame went,
there was nothing wrong with the man". Caesar himself must have felt a little
uneasy when he offered sacrifice at the temple and discovered, to the horror of
the priests and onlookers, that the animal had no heart. Indeed, a soothsayer is
said to have warned Caesar of the Ides of March, March the 15th, 44 BC. When
that day dawned, Caesar noticed the man, and cried at him happily that the Ides
had come. "Yes, they are here," the man responded, "but they have not yet gone."
Caesar, much to the sorrow of Calpurnia, who had apparently been that night
visited by strange omens, left that morning to address the Senate, which met,
oddly enough, at the Theater of Pompey instead of the Curia.
Outside the Theater, loyal Antonius was detained in conversation with Caesar's
heir (and one of his secret enemies) Decimus 'Albinus' Brutus, while inside, in
the Pompeian Assembly Room, preparations were made to kill the entering Caesar.
Cassius, looking up at the statue Pompey had erected to himself, silently
invoked the help of the late triumvir to help them save the Republic. Caesar
took a seat underneath that statue, and began to listen to one of the plotters,
Senator Cimber, asking him to revoke the sentence on his brother. Brutus,
Cassius, and sixteen others came round to speak to him, and Caesar rose to his
feet. Caesar, of course, rejected Cimber's pleas, and Cimber grabbed at his own
toga and tore it down from his throat. This was not simply a sign of
frustration; it was a sign of 'let's go, boys'.
As Caesar watched Cimber tear down his toga, Casca unsheathed his sica, and
promptly attempted to sheath it in Caesar's neck. The wound, though not very
deep at all, was still rather painful to Caesar. Immediately, Casca fell back in
pain, Caesar having given his attacker a nasty jab in the arm with his trusty
stylus. As Casca dropped, his dagger flying out of his hand, Caesar cried "You
damned Casca, what are you doing?" Simultaneously, Casca called his brother for
assistance. Immediately, knives flew at Caesar's face, cutting through the air,
and cutting into the dictator's body. Pushed against the statue of Pompey,
Caesar could barely resist his attackers. After being stabbed numerous times,
Caesar staggered forward, trying desperately to break away from this crew.
However, as he did so, Marcus Junius Brutus lunged forward, his dagger pointing
right for Caesar's chest. It was instead embedded deep in his groin. In horror,
staring Brutus right in the eyes, Caesar spat up some blood, and managed to spit
out along with it the words, "Kai su technon?" This is the Greek for, "You too,
my child?" (It is actually quite possible that Brutus really was Caesar's son.)
It was then that Caesar fell backward, slamming against the blood-soaked
pedestal of the Pompeian statue, his toga falling over his face. His lifeblood
quickly drained from his butchered trunk. He was dead. There were twenty-three
stab wounds covering his body, puncturing his toga. The Senators, some of them
wounded accidentally by each other in the rush to stab Caesar, quickly filed out
of the Theater, waving their bloodied weapons in triumph. Caesar was left alone
in the Assembly Room; his pierced bloody lying against the statue, surrounded by
pools of his own blood. The eyes of marble Pompey stared unseeing down at the
dictator's corpse. Caesar was dead; the Republic was, so it seemed, saved. Now
what?
Cleaning Up the Mess
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not
to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred
with their bones; So let it be with Caesar," says Antony in Act III, Scene II of
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, "The noble Brutus hath told you that Caesar was
ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar
answer'd it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--For Brutus is an
honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men—Come I to speak in Caesar's
funeral. He was my friend, faithful, and just to me: But Brutus says he was
ambitious; and Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to
Rome, Whose ransom did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem
ambitious?"
The scene is, of course, the Forum, the date is March 20th, 44 BC. Marcus
Antonius, delivering his funeral speech to the hundreds of thousands of
mourners, the plebeians and patricians alike, begins in criticism against
Caesar, as his old commander's body lies on the pyre, covered in purple and gold
cloth, slowly burning away in the flames. Slowly, however, Marc Antony changes
the whole gist of the speech from criticism of Caesar to downright Caesarian
passion. "When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be
made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; and Brutus is an
honorable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a
kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he
was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honorable man."
Of course C. Cassius Longinus, Marcus Brutus, and Servillus Casca, along with
the throng of other Senators who had taken part in the assassination of Caesar,
must be, at this point, beginning to feel slightly uncomfortable, as they
undoubtedly try to take their eyes off the crowd, which is quickly growing
incredibly angry with the murderers. Of course, Antonius doesn't let the killers
off easily. He continues with, "I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But
here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? O judgement! thou art fled to
brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. Bare with me; My heart is in the
coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me."
Antonius soon continues, on and on, and soon, the crowd is turned in fury
against the murderers. Shakespeare may well have simply been nothing more than a
playwright trying to build up the drama of the scene with this speech, which was
certainly concocted by old Billy solely for the play. However, despite the
apparent invention of the words, Shakespeare was more correct than one would at
first believe. Antonius most certainly did give a speech at the cremation of
Caesar; the crowd most certainly was turned against Caesar's assassins, in all
probability because of Antonius' words. Unfortunately for us, and perhaps
fortunately for Shakespeare, we don't really know what all Antonius actually
said at the cremation, but Plutarch certainly gives us an idea of the gist of
it, and Shakespeare certainly would have been influenced by his description. "He
[Antonius] saw that the people were deeply stirred and fascinated by his words,
and proceeded to mingle with his praises of Caesar compassion and horror at the
woeful deed," writes Plutarch. "As he ended his speech, he waved above them the
clothing of the dead man, blood-stained and torn by swords, and called the
perpetrators of the deed villains and assassins. He got the people in such a
state of frenzy that they piled up benches and tables and burned Caesar's body
in the forum, and then snatching up flaming faggots from the pyre, ran to the
houses of the murderers to attack them." Brutus, Cassius, and the lot would most
certainly have been a little worried by now, and would have begun to wonder,
"Should we have done this?" What had placed them in this sort of jeopardy?
Saving the Republic, it seemed, had.
Of course, when the assassins (all twenty-some of them) plunged their knives
into Caesar, they would have expected a little more enthusiasm for what they'd
done from the people of Rome, but surprisingly, that enthusiasm hadn't come. The
discontent had all started lightly, of course, a few crying individuals, a few
shouts of rage, some old woman breaking down in the street, that sort of thing,
but then it became a little more worrying. Several rich citizens seem to have
actually commissioned busts of the dead general based on his own exanimate face,
leading to a large group of busts with the sunken cheeks and a face that looked
so different in contrast to those of the animate Caesar. Next, of course, came
the cremation. Brutus' little eulogy was laconic and pithy, and basically said
that Caesar had simply gotten what was coming to him for being overly ambitious.
However, Antonius' eulogy ensured that the crowd would take retribution on the
killers. Antonius and Octavius (Caesar's nephew, adopted son, and heir) were the
heroes of the hour. Snatching up pieces of burning wood, the mob rushed off to
go find as many of the killers as possible. The crowd saw among them a praetor
for that year, Lucius Cornelius Cinna, a relative of Caesar's first wife and, of
course, one of the murderers. Within a few minutes the crowd was upon him,
tearing him to shreds. Unfortunately, they'd gotten the wrong Cinna; this one
was a tribune, Gaius Helvius Cinna, and one of Caesar's best friends. Ah well,
we all make mistakes. Interestingly enough, Cinna reported of a strange omen
that he'd seen in a dream that morning, before the funeral. In the dream, Caesar
invited him to dinner. Cinna turned down the offer, but Caesar still dragged him
along anyway, in spite of his protests.
Strangely enough, it wasn't simply Caesar's enemies that the mob wanted to bump
off. Cleopatra, the Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt (and a bosom chum of Caesar's, so
much so that she'd born him his only positively identified child, Caesarion) was
nearly killed in her villa across the Tiber from the city. The reason was that,
of course, she had corrupted poor old Caesar with her sinful ways, and had,
through this, made poor Calpurnia the wreck she was these days. Had it not been
for an early warning from a maidservant, Cleopatra probably wouldn't have
survived the night. Luckily for her, she managed to get out of Rome on the 15th
of April. "I hate the Queen," writes Cicero, "Her arrogance, when she was living
across the Tiber in the gardens…I cannot recall without profound bitterness."
Clearing out also were Brutus, Cassius, and the lot, heading out for a much
safer place to stay. Things were getting increasingly nasty in Rome, especially
when one was an enemy of the late lamented Caesar. Five days after Caesar died,
Marcus Cicero, the barrister, wrote to his friend Atticus, "Ah, friend, I fear
that the Ides of March have given us nothing beyond the pleasure and
satisfaction of our hatred and indignation. What news I receive, what sights I
see! 'Lofty was that deed, aye, but bootless!'"
- - -
Copyright © 2002 Addison Hart.
Written by Addison Hart.
|
