Imperial Purple | Page 6

the tramp of legions, and the cry,
caught up and repeated, "Io! Triomphe!"
Presently, in the temple of the god of gods, side by side with the statue
of Jupiter, Caesar found his own statue with "Caesar, demi- god," at its
base. The captive chiefs disappeared in the Tullianum, and a herald
called, "They have lived!" Through the squares jesters circulated,
polyglot and obscene; across the Tiber, in an artificial lake, the flotilla
of Egypt fought against that of Tyr; in the amphitheatre there was a
combat of soldiers, infantry against cavalry, one that indemnified those
that had not seen the massacres in Thessaly and in Spain. There were
public feasts, gifts to everyone. Tables were set in the Forum, in the
circuses and theatres. Falernian circulated in amphorae, Chios in barrels.
When the populace was gorged there were the red feathers to enable it
to gorge again. Of the Rome of Romulus there was nothing left save the
gaunt she-wolf, her wide lips curled at the descendants of her nursling.

Later, when in slippered feet Caesar wandered through those lovely
gardens of his that lay beyond the Tiber, it may be that he recalled a
dream which had come to him as a lad; one which concerned the
submission of his mother; one which had disturbed him until the
sooth-sayers said: "The mother you saw is the earth, and you will be
her master." And as the memory of the dream returned, perhaps with it
came the memory of the hour when as simple quaestor he had wept at
Gaddir before a statue that was there. Demi-god, yes; he was that. More,
even; he was dictator, but the dream was unfulfilled. There were the
depths of Hither Asia, the mysteries that lay beyond; there were the
glimmering plains of the Caucasus; there were the Vistula and the
Baltic; the diadems of Cyrus and of Alexander defying his ambition yet,
and what were triumphs and divinity to one who would own the world!
It was this that preoccupied him. The immensity of his successes
seemed petty and Rome very small. Heretofore he had forgiven those
who had opposed him. Presently his attitude changed, and so subtly
that it was the more humiliating; it was not that he no longer forgave,
he disdained to punish. His contempt was absolute. The senate made
his office of pontifix maximus hereditary and accorded the title of
Imperator to his heirs. He snubbed the senate and the honors that it
brought. The senate was shocked. Composed of men whose fortunes he
had made, the senate was not only shocked, its education in ingratitude
was complete. Already there had been murmurs. Not content with
disarranging the calendar, outlining an empire, drafting a code while
planning fresh beauties, new theatres, bilingual libraries, larger temples,
grander gods, Caesar was at work in the markets, in the kitchens of the
gourmets, in the jewel-boxes of the virgins. Liberty, visibly, was taking
flight. Besides, the power concentrated in him might be so pleasantly
distributed. It was decided that Caesar was in the way. To put him out
of it a pretext was necessary.
One day the senate assembled at his command. They were to sign a
decree creating him king. In order not to, Suetonius says, they killed
him, wounding each other in the effort, for Caesar fought like the
demon that he was, desisting only when he recognized Brutus, to whom,
in Greek, he muttered a reproach, and, draping his toga that he might
fall with decency, sank backward, his head covered, a few feet from the
bronze wolf that stood, its ears pointed at the letters S. P. Q. R. which

decorated a frieze of the Curia.
Brutus turned to harangue the senate; it had fled. He went to the Forum
to address the people; there was no one. Rome was strangely empty.
Doors were barricaded, windows closed. Through the silent streets
gladiators prowled. Night came, and with it whispering groups. The
groups thickened, voices mounted. Caesar's will had been read. He had
left his gardens to the people, a gift to every citizen, his wealth and
power to his butchers. The body, which two slaves had removed, an
arm hanging from the litter, had never been as powerfully alive. Caesar
reigned then as never before. A mummer mouthed:
"I brought them life, they gave me death."
And willingly would the mob have made Rome the funeral pyre of their
idol. In the sky a comet appeared. It was his soul on its way to
Olympus.

II
CONJECTURAL ROME
"I received Rome in brick; I shall leave it in marble," said Augustus,
who was fond of fine phrases, a trick he had caught from Vergil. And
when he looked from his home on the Palatine over the glitter of