But after Pharsalia there was no longer any means of preserving this illusion. Caesar did not demand an exceptional authority; he aspired to found a new government. Had he not been heard to say that “republic” was a word void of meaning, and that Sulla was a fool to have abdicated the dictatorship? His measures for regulating the exercise of the popular suffrage in his own interest, the choice that he had made in advance of consuls and praetors for several years running, the delivery of the public treasure and the administration of the revenue of the state by his freedmen and slaves, the union of all dignities in his own person, the censorship under the name of praefecture of morals, the perpetual dictatorship, which did not prevent him getting himself appointed consul every year; everything, in fine, in his laws and in his conduct indicated a definitive taking possession of power. Far from taking any of those precautions to hide the extent of his authority that Augustus employed later, he seemed to exhibit it with complacency, and without concerning himself about the enemies that his frankness might make him. On the contrary, by a sort of ironical scepticism and bold impertinence, that betrayed the great nobleman, he loved to shock the fanatical partisans of ancient usages. He smiled at seeing pontifs and augurs scared when he dared to deny the gods in full senate, and it was his amusement to disconcert those ceremonious old men, the superstitious guardians of ancient practices. Further, as he was a man of pleasure before all things, he loved power not only for the sake of exercising it, but also to enjoy its fruits; he was not contented with the reality of sovereign authority, he wished also for its outward signs, the splendour that surrounds it, the homage it exacts, the pomp that sets it off, and even the name that designates it. He knew well how much that title of king that he so ardently desired frightened the Romans; but his hardihood took pleasure in braving old prejudices at the same time that his candour no doubt thought it more honourable to give its real name to the power he exercised. The result of this conduct of Caesar was to dissipate all doubts. Thanks to it, illusion or misunderstanding was no longer possible. The question was now, not between two ambitious rivals, as at the time of Pharsalia, but between two opposite forms of government. Opinions, as sometimes happens, became clearly defined one by the other, and the intention of founding a monarchy, which Caesar openly avowed, brought about the creation of a great republican party.
How was it that in this party the boldest and most violent men formed the idea of uniting and organizing themselves? How, with growing confidence, did they come to form a plot against the life of the dictator? It is impossible to find this out exactly. All that we know is that the first idea of the plot had been formed at the same time in two quite opposite parties, among the vanquished of Pharsalia, and, what is more surprising, among Caesar’s generals themselves. These two conspiracies were probably distinct in origin, and each acted on its own account: while Cassius was thinking of killing Caesar on the banks of the Cydnus, Trebonius had been on the point of assassinating him at Narbonne. They finally united.
Every party begins by seeking a leader. If they had wished to continue the traditions of the preceding war, this leader was already at hand. Sextus, a son of Pompey, remained. He had escaped by a miracle from Pharsalia and Munda, and had survived all his family. Conquered, but not discouraged, he wandered in the mountains or along the shores, by turns an able partisan or a bold pirate, and the obstinate Pompeians united around him. But men no longer desired to be of a Pompeian party. They wished to have some one for chief who represented not merely a name but a principle, one who should represent the republic and liberty without any personal reservations. It was necessary that he should be in complete opposition to the government they were going to attack, by his life, his manners, and his character. He must be upright, because the power was corrupt, disinterested, in order to protest against the insatiable greed that surrounded Caesar, already illustrious, in order that the different elements of which the party was composed should give way to him, and still young, for they had need of a bold stroke. Now, there was only one man who united all these qualities, namely Brutus. Consequently, the eyes of every one were fixed on him. The public voice marked him out as the chief of the republican party while he was still the friend of Caesar. When the first conspirators went to all quarters seeking accomplices, they always received the same answer: “We will join you if Brutus will lead us.” Caesar himself, notwithstanding his confidence and his friendship, seemed sometimes to have a presentiment whence the danger would come to him. One day when they were trying to alarm him with the discontent and threats of Antony and Dolabella: “No,” he replied, “those debauchees are not to be feared; it is the thin and pale men.” He meant chiefly to indicate Brutus.
To this pressure of public opinion, which wished to direct the action of Brutus, and to implicate him without his assent, it was necessary to add more formal exhortations in order to persuade him; they came to him from all sides. I have no need to recall those notes that he found in his tribunal, those inscriptions that were placed at the foot of his grandfather’s statue,[[346]] and all those clever manœuvres that Plutarch has so well narrated. But no one better served the designs of those who wished to make Brutus a conspirator than Cicero, who, however, did not know them. His letters show us the disposition of his mind at that time. Spite, anger, regret for lost liberty break out in them with singular vivacity. “I am ashamed of being a slave,”[[347]] he wrote one day to Cassius, without suspecting that at that very moment Cassius was secretly searching for the means of being so no longer. It was impossible that these sentiments should not come to light in the books he published at that time. We find them there now that we read them in cold blood; much more must they have been seen when these books were commented on by hatred and read with eyes rendered penetrating by passion. How many epigrams were then appreciated which now escape us! What stinging and bitter words, unperceived now, were then applauded and maliciously repeated in those conversations where the master and his friends were pulled to pieces! There was in them what Cicero wittily calls “the bite of liberty which never tears better than when she has been muzzled for some time.”[[348]] With a little effort we find allusions everywhere. If the author spoke with so much admiration of the ancient eloquence, it was because he wished to put to shame that deserted Forum and that mute senate; the memories of the old government were only recalled in order to attack the new one, and the praise of the dead became the satire of the living. Cicero well understood the whole import of his books when he said of them later: “They served me as a senate or a rostrum from which I could speak.”[[349]] Nothing served more to stir up public opinion, to put regret for the past and disgust for the present into men’s minds, and thus to prepare the events which were to follow.
Brutus must have been more moved than any one else in reading Cicero’s writings; they were dedicated to him; they were written for him. Although they were meant to influence the whole public, they contained passages addressed more directly to him. Cicero not only sought to arouse his patriotic sentiments; he recalled the memories and hopes of his youth. With perfidious skill he even interested his vanity in the restoration of the ancient government by pointing out what a position he might make for himself in it. “Brutus,” he said, “I feel my grief revive when I look upon you and consider how the unhappy fate of the republic has arrested the rapid advance to glory which we anticipated in your youth. This is the true cause of my sorrow, this is the cause of my cares and of those of Atticus, who shares in my esteem and affection for you. You are the object of all our interest, we desire that you should reap the fruits of your virtue; our most earnest wishes are that the conditions of the republic may permit you one day to revive and increase the glory of the two illustrious houses you represent. You ought to be master in the Forum and reign there without a rival; we are, in truth, doubly afflicted, that the republic is lost for you, and you for the republic.”[[350]] Such regrets, expressed in this fashion, and with this mixture of private and public interests, were well calculated to disturb Brutus. Antony was not altogether wrong when he accused Cicero of having been an accomplice in the death of Caesar. If he did not himself strike, he armed the hands that struck, and the conspirators were perfectly right when, on coming from the senate house, after the Ides of March, they brandished their bloody swords and called aloud upon Cicero.
To these incitements from without there were added others of a still more powerful kind from Brutus’ own household. His mother had always used the influence she had over him to draw him towards Caesar; but just at this critical time Servilia’s influence was lessened by the marriage of Brutus with his cousin Porcia. Daughter of Cato and widow of Bibulus, Porcia brought into her new home, all the passions of her father and her first husband, and especially hatred of Caesar, who had caused all her misfortunes. She had scarcely entered when disagreements arose between her and her mother-in-law. Cicero, who tells us of them, does not relate to us their cause; but it is not rash to suppose that these two women contended for the affection of Brutus, and that they wished to rule him that they might draw him in different directions. Servilia’s influence no doubt lost something in these domestic discussions, and her voice, opposed by the advice of a new and beloved wife, had no longer the same authority when it spoke for Caesar.
Thus everything combined to lead Brutus on. Let us conceive this hesitating and scrupulous man attacked on so many sides at once, by the incitements of public opinion, by memories of the past, by the traditions of his family and the very name he bore, by those secret reproaches placed under his hands and scattered on his path, which came every moment to strike his inattentive eyes, to murmur in his heedless ear, and then finding at home the same memories and the same reproaches under the form of legitimate sorrows and touching regrets. Must he not at last give way to this daily assault? Nevertheless it is probable that he resisted before giving in, that he had violent struggles during those sleepless nights that Plutarch speaks of; but as these private struggles could have no confidants they have left no trace in the historians.
All that we can do if we wish to know them is, to try and find their faint impression in the letters that Brutus wrote later, and that are preserved. We see, for instance, that he returns at two different times to this same thought: “Our ancestors thought that we ought not to endure a tyrant even if he were our own father.[[351]]... To have more authority than the laws and the senate is a right that I would not grant to my father himself.”[[352]] Is not this the answer which he made every time he felt himself moved by the memory of Caesar’s paternal affection, when he reflected that this man against whom he was about to take arms called him his child? As to the favours that he had received or that he might expect from him, they might have been able to disarm another, but he hardened and stiffened himself against them. “No slavery is advantageous enough to make me abandon the resolution to be free.”[[353]] It was with such considerations that he defended himself against the friends of the dictator, perhaps against his mother, when in order to dazzle him she pointed out to him that, if he would acquiesce in the kingship of Caesar he might hope to share it. He would never have consented to pay with his liberty the right to domineer over others; the bargain would have been too disadvantageous. “It is better to command no one than to be a slave,” he wrote. “A man can live without commanding, but life as a slave is worthless.”[[354]]
In the midst of all these anxieties of which no one could know, an event happened which very much surprised the public, and which Cicero’s letters relate without explanation. When it was known that Caesar was returning to Rome after his victory over Pompey, Brutus went to meet him with an alacrity that everybody remarked, and that many people blamed. What was his intention? A few words of Cicero, to which sufficient attention has not been paid, allow us to guess. Before taking a definite resolution, Brutus wished to make a last appeal to Caesar, and to try once more to draw him towards the republic. He made a point of commending to him the men of the vanquished party, and especially Cicero, in the hope that they might be recalled to public office. Caesar listened kindly to these praises, welcomed Brutus, and did not discourage him too much. The latter, with too easy confidence, hastened to return to Rome, and announce to every one that Caesar was coming back to the party of honest men. He went so far as to advise Cicero to address a political letter to the dictator, which should contain some good advice and make some advances; but Cicero did not share in his friend’s hopes, and after a little hesitation, refused to write. In truth, Brutus’ illusions did not last long. Antony had anticipated him with Caesar. Antony, who by his follies had disturbed the tranquillity of Rome, had much to be pardoned for; but he well knew the means of succeeding in this. While Brutus was trying to bring Caesar and the republicans together, and thought he had succeeded, Antony, in order to soften his master, flattered his most cherished wishes, and no doubt made that crown which he so anxiously desired, glitter before his eyes. The scene of the Lupercalia showed clearly that Antony had carried the day and it was no longer possible for Brutus to doubt Caesar’s intentions. Antony’s plan, indeed, did not succeed this time: the cries of the multitude, and the opposition of the two tribunes, forced Caesar to refuse the diadem that was offered him; but it was well known that this check had not discouraged him. The occasion was only deferred, and was about to present itself again. With regard to the Parthian war, an old Sybilline oracle which said that the Parthians would only be conquered by a king was to be brought before the senate, and this title was to be demanded for Caesar. Now there were too many foreigners and too many cowards in the senate to admit of the answer being doubtful. This was the moment that Cassius chose to reveal to Brutus the plot that was being hatched, and to ask him to be its head.
Cassius, whose name becomes from this moment inseparable from that of Brutus, formed a complete contrast to him. He had gained a great military reputation by saving the remains of Crassus’ army and driving the Parthians from Syria; but at the same time he was charged with being fond of pleasure, an epicurean in doctrine and conduct, eager for power, and not very scrupulous about the means of gaining it. He had pillaged the province he governed, like almost all the proconsuls; it was said that Syria had found little advantage in being saved by him, and would almost as soon have passed into the hands of the Parthians. Cassius was bitter in raillery, uneven in temper, hasty, sometimes cruel,[[355]] and we can well understand that he would not have shrunk from an assassination; but whence came the idea of killing Caesar? Plutarch says that it was through spite at not having obtained the urban praetorship which the dictator’s favour had accorded to Brutus, and indeed, nothing prevents us thinking that personal resentment had embittered that impetuous spirit. Yet if Cassius had only this insult to avenge it is not probable that he would have acted in concert with the man who had been a party to it and had profited by it. He had quite other motives for hating Caesar. An aristocrat by birth and temper, his heart was full of the hatred felt by the vanquished aristocracy; he must have a bloody revenge for the defeat of his party, and Caesar’s pardon had not extinguished the anger that the sight of his oppressed caste aroused in him. Thus, while Brutus sought to be the man of a principle, Cassius was openly the man of a party. It seems that he early had the idea of avenging Pharsalia by an assassination. At least, Cicero says that, a very few months after he had obtained his pardon, he waited for Caesar on one bank of the Cydnus to kill him, and that Caesar was saved only by the accident that made him land on the other bank. He resumed his purpose at Rome, notwithstanding the favours of which he had been the object. It was he who got up the conspiracy, sought out the malcontents, and brought them together in secret meetings; and as he saw that they all demanded Brutus for leader, he took upon himself to speak to him.