The Historians' History of the World 05

That same night they entered into negotiations with Antony, and the result appeared next morning, the second after the murder. The senate, summoned to meet, obeyed the call in large numbers. Antony and Dolabella attended in their consular robes, and Cinna resumed his prætorian garb. It was soon apparent that a reconciliation had been effected; for Antony moved that a general amnesty should be granted, and Cicero seconded the motion in an animated speech. It was carried; and Antony next moved that all the acts of the dictator should be recognised as law. He had his own purposes here, but the liberators also saw in the motion an advantage to themselves; for they were actually in possession of some of the chief magistracies, and had received appointments to some of the richest provinces of the empire. This proposal, therefore, was favourably received; but it was adjourned to the next day, together with the important question of Cæsar’s funeral.

CÆSAR’S WILL AND FUNERAL

On the next day, Cæsar’s acts were formally confirmed, and among them his will was declared valid, though its provisions were yet unknown. After this, it was difficult to reject the proposal that the dictator should have a public burial. Old senators remembered the riots that attended the funeral of Clodius, and shook their heads. Cassius opposed it. But Brutus, with imprudent magnanimity, decided in favour of allowing it. To seal the reconciliation, Lepidus entertained Brutus at dinner, and Cassius was feasted by Mark Antony.

The will was immediately made public. Cleopatra was still in Rome, and entertained hopes that the boy Cæsarion would be declared the dictator’s heir, for though he had been married thrice there was no one of his lineage surviving. But Cæsar was too much a Roman, and knew the Romans too well, to be guilty of this folly. Young C. Octavius was declared his heir. C. Octavius was the son of his niece Atia, and therefore his grand-nephew. He was born, as we have noted, in the memorable year of Catiline’s conspiracy, and was now in his nineteenth year. From the time that he had assumed the garb of manhood his health had been too delicate for military service. Notwithstanding this, he had ventured to demand the mastership of the horse from his uncle. But he was quietly refused, and sent to take his first lessons in the art of war at Apollonia, where a large and well-equipped army had been assembled.

SPEECH OF ANTONY OVER CÆSAR’S BODY

Legacies were left to all Cæsar’s supposed friends, among whom were several of those who had assassinated him. His noble gardens beyond the Tiber were devised to the use of the public, and every Roman citizen was to receive a donation of three hundred sesterces (between £2 and £3). The effect of this recital was electric. Devotion to the memory of the dictator and hatred for his murderers at once filled every breast.

Two or three days after this followed the funeral. The body was to be burned and the ashes deposited in the Campus Martius near the tomb of his daughter Julia. But it was first brought into the Forum upon a bier inlaid with ivory and covered with rich tapestries, which was carried by men high in rank and office. There Antony, as consul, rose to pronounce the funeral oration. He ran through the chief acts of Cæsar’s life, recited his will, and then spoke of the death which had rewarded him. To make this more vividly present to the excitable Italians, he displayed a waxen image marked with the three-and-twenty wounds, and produced the very robe which he had worn, all rent and blood-stained. Soul-stirring dirges added to the solemn horror of the scene. But to us the memorable speech which Shakespeare puts into Antony’s mouth will give the liveliest notion of the art used and the impression produced. That impression was instantaneous. The senator friends of the liberators who had attended the ceremony looked on in moody silence. Soon the menacing gestures of the crowd made them look to their safety. They fled; and the multitude insisted on burning the body, as they had burned the body of Clodius, in the sacred precincts of the Forum. Some of the veterans who attended the funeral set fire to the bier; benches and firewood heaped round it soon made a sufficient pile.

From the blazing pyre the crowd rushed, eager for vengeance, to the houses of the conspirators. But all had fled betimes. One poor wretch fell a victim to the fury of the mob—Helvius Cinna, a poet who had devoted his art to the service of the dictator. He was mistaken for L. Cornelius Cinna the prætor, and torn to pieces before the mistake could be explained.[131]