The Dictator by Robert Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

their petitions. At the far end—too far away for me to make out his face—seated between pillars, dispensing judgement from his magistrate’s chair, in a toga so white it stood out brightly amid the locals’ drab winter plumage, was Caesar.

    Uncertain how to approach him, I found myself joining the line of petitioners. Caesar was issuing his rulings at such a rate that we shuffled forwards almost continuously, and as I drew closer I saw that he was doing several things at once—listening to each supplicant, reading documents as they were handed to him by a secretary, and conferring with an army officer who had taken off his helmet and was bending down to whisper in his ear. I took out Cicero’s letter so that I would have it ready. But then it struck me that this was not perhaps the proper place to hand over the appeal: that it was unconducive somehow to the dignity of a former consul for his request to be considered alongside the domestic complaints of all these farmers and tradespeople, worthy folk though they no doubt were. The officer finished his report, straightened, and was just walking past me towards the door, fastening his helmet, when his eyes met mine and he stopped in surprise. “Tiro?”
    I glimpsed his father in him before I could put a name to the young man himself. It was M. Crassus’s son, Publius, now a cavalry commander on Caesar’s staff. Unlike his father he was a cultured, gracious, noble man, and an admirer of Cicero, whose company he used to seek out. He greeted me with great affability—“What brings you to Mutina?”—and when I told him, he volunteered at once to arrange a private interview with Caesar and insisted I accompany him to the villa where the governor and his entourage were staying.
    “I’m doubly glad to see you,” he said as we walked, “for I’ve often thought of Cicero, and the injustice done to him. I’ve talked to my father about it and persuaded him not to oppose his recall. And Pompey, as you know, supports it too—only last week he sent Sestius, one of the tribunes-elect, up here to plead his cause with Caesar.”
    I could not help observing, “It seems that everything these days depends upon Caesar.”
    “Well, you have to understand his position. He feels no personal animosity towards your master—very much the opposite. But unlike my father and Pompey, he’s not in Rome to defend himself. He’s concerned about losing political support while his back is turned, and being recalled before his work here is complete. He sees Cicero as the greatest threat to his position. Come inside—let me show you something.”

    We passed the sentry and went into the house, and Publius conducted me through the crowded public rooms to a small library where, from an ivory casket, he produced a series of dispatches, all beautifully edged in black and housed in purple slip-cases, with the word Commentaries picked out in vermilion in the title line.
    “These are Caesar’s own personal copies,” Publius explained, handling them carefully. “He takes them with him wherever he goes. They are his record of the campaign in Gaul, which he has decided to send regularly to be posted up in Rome. One day he intends to collect them all together and publish them as a book. It’s perfectly marvellous stuff. See for yourself.”
    He plucked out a roll for me to read:
There is a river called the Saone, which flows through the territories of the Aedui and Sequani into the Rhone with such incredible slowness that it cannot be determined by the eye in which direction it flows. This the Helvetii were crossing by rafts and boats joined together. When Caesar was informed by spies that the Helvetii had already conveyed three parts of their forces across that river, but that the fourth part was left behind on this side of the Saone, he set out from the camp with three legions. Attacking them, encumbered with baggage, and not expecting him, he cut to pieces a great part of them…
    I said,