Part 49 (1/2)
Calpurnia was already there, on the curving steps of the round Temple of Vesta She looked ale way, her companion in loss
”They are on their way here,” she said ”They took his--they took hi Look! See where they will lay hie bier, made to look like the Temple of Venus Genetrix Under its coluold, waited to receive hian to play dirges and solemnly beat their dru
Torches were lit all around the Foruht I could see the procession now, h went up froistrates, wound its way to the waiting bier Then it was placed reverently on the ivory couch, and the men stepped back Antony appeared and mounted the bier, resplendent in his consular robes
First a herald recited in ringing tones all the decrees passed in Caesar's na the oath of loyalty they had all sworn At this the people gave a groan Then he recited Caesar's wars and battles, the enemies defeated and the treasures sent hos voted to hi the sonorous funeral chant The people took it up,back and forth
The chant finished, Antony then began to speak, with the loud, resonant voice and oratory for which he was famed
”Caesar, Caesar!” he cried ”Will there ever come another like you to Rome--you who so tenderly loved it like a son, cherished it like a wife, and honored it like a mother? No, no, never, never, never!”
He looked around at the entire crowd, his head held high ”For the Gods, Caesar was appointed high priest; for us, Consul; for the soldiers, Imperator; and for the enemy, Dictator But why do I enumerate these details, when in one phrase you called him father of his country, not to estured toward Caesar, lying on the ivory couch ”Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, this hero and God, is dead, alas! dead not by the violence of soe, nor wounded abroad soht up inexplicably by some supernatural force, but no! he who led an arht here within the walls of the city as a result of a plot!”
His voice rising, he swept his right ar everyone before hied its boundaries--ambushed in the city itself! The man who built Rome a new Senate house--murdered in it! The brave warrior--unare--beside the court of justice! The ment! He whom none of the enemy was able to kill even when he fell into the sea--at the hands of the citizens! He who so often took pity on his coain and cried out to him, ”Of what avail, Caesar, was your humanity, of what avail your inviolability, of what avail the laws? Now, though you enacted ht not be killed by their personal foes, yet how mercilessly you yourself were slain by your friends! And now, the victih which you often led the Triumph crowned Wounded to death, you have been cast down upon the Rostra from which you often addressed the people Woe for your blood-bespattered head, alas for the rent robe, which you assuht be slain in it!”
His voice broke and tears streamed down his face
Just then someone near the bier shouted the line from a well-known play by Pacuvius: ” 'What, did I save these ht slayfrom Caesar himself
Suddenly, Antony snatched up Caesar's bloody toga and held it aloft on his spear, twirling it around The torchlight showed the stains--turned black no--and the gaping holes in the garment ”Look there! See! See! See hoas brutally slain--he who loved Roardens to you, as well as bequests ofyou, the people of Roreat cry arose fro ic, they were hauling furniture toward the bier--benches, stalls, chairs, staves--and turning it into a funeral pyre
”Here! Here in the Foru up the furniture Antony hastily jumped down off the platforh the air and landed on the pile It flickered and caught, and then a rain of other torches followed
People rushed toward the roaring fire as it reached upward to Caesar Caesar! My heart stood still as I saw the flaand heaved it into the flames The official mourners, who had worn his four Triumphal robes, tore them to pieces and cast them into the fire Soldiers ripped off their valuable breastplates and threw the their jewelry, as if they were all sacrificing at some primitive bonfire to the God Caesar
Thus the people proclai before Octavian did
People fell on the ground, sobbing, beating their breasts, wailing The s out the stars; sparks fleard in the darkness, each a new star, flaroup of people differently dressed stood by the fla I learned later that these were Jeho knew Caesar as their partisan and friend He had obtained es for them, and they were to mourn by the ashes of the funeral pyre for days afterward
We watched, transfixed, as the great sacrifice was consuht The Gods accepted it And I relinquished Caesar into their pitiless hands
HERE ENDS THE THE THIRD SCROLL THIRD SCROLL
Chapter 35
THE FOURTH SCROLL
In the fetid, close cabin of the heaving shi+p that plowed its way through the high seas, I was torturously reborn Weak and sick, I lay on the bed that bucked and juht But I did not care; it was impossible to be more miserable than I was, no matter where I lay or what surrounded me I felt that I could lie forever on that foul bed, entoht cabin, the lack of light, the smell and sound of water, all were a hideous repetition of my journey in the carpet toborne away fro amble of it; now it beat feebly with the blow of defeat it had been dealt And as day followed day, and the water-seeping,cabin heldback toward a woness
I did not eat I did not wake--or perhaps I never really slept And I did not think Above all, I did not think But the drea drea hiulfed in flames as he had lain on his bier Then I would screa ain, and be taken back by the dreaot through those days that now see me But I had little e to it I left, that is all I left as soon as I could, without actually running fro shi+p Only when I was safely aboard and saw the shoreline of Italy receding in the distance did I go to the cabin, lie down, and die
Char the dreadful cabin day after day, reading tobesides the all-absorbing world inas possible under the circuht fish stew, boiled peas and lentils, honeyed cakes They all looked, and s h I had not tasted them
”You aste away,” Char it with her own hand ” ”ls this a royal ar the bracelet of the Kandake” She would attehth and several others were obese, but must you do penance for it this way? To turn yourself into a skeleton?” She appealed to my pride ”What if Caesar could see you now?”
But that was to no avail So me, and I knew that he--he who had had the weakness of the falling sickness--would understand my state and sympathize with it Other ti hly than if I had never been held close to him at all Then I knew it did not one, and would never behold me anymore
Days passed; and because I was not dead but alive, and because life--if it is life--eventually stirs, I was gradually reborn, ehtless, tiain, the light see ainst ht and stabbing I had to shade ht of the horizon where the two blueselse to be seen--no land, no clouds
”Where are we?” I asked Charuided me up on deck My voice sounded shaky and faint
”In the very middle of the sea--halfway home”
”Oh” On the way to Ro the winds to fill the sails and blow us there as fast as possible Now I had no idea how long we had been at sea, or ould arrive, nor did I care
”We have been gone fro to spark some interest and sense of time in me
Thirty days That meant Caesar had been dead for almost forty-five That was all any date meant tobefore or after?
”It is already the beginning of May,” said Char to orient me
May This time last year, Caesar had still been away froht what turned out to be his last battle, at Munda, in Spain-- and alers of the assassins This ti for hi tione to his estate at Lavicum and written his will--the will that named Octavian his heir, and failed to mention Caesarion at all
At the , like the head of a fern breaking the ground after a winter's sleep It was spindly and pale, but it was alive, and uncurling
It was grief, regret, and anger all ether It would have taken so little for him to have formally na to him; even if he had reminded the executors that under Ro It was Caesar's nanition, not his property Now, forever after, his enemies had the opportunity to claim that Caesarion was not Caesar's own-- after all, the Dictator had not mentioned him in his will! Eyewitnesses to the occasion in Roed hirow old, die, while the historical document of the will remained, and lived on and on
Oh, Caesar, I cried inside, Why did you abandon us, even before you abandoned us?
I remembered how joyous I had been to welco of his actions at Lavicu all his reasons for why he could not fore Caesarion But just a word in the will--a few precious words, that would have cost Caesar nothing, but the lack of them would cost us dear!
Weak and shaky, I returned to the cabin Enough daylight for one day
Mybefore my body It did not want to be forced to return to the dreaan to feed onwhat had happened in Ro what news had been received in Alexandria Perhaps, in Egypt, they did not yet even know about the Ides of March