CLASSICAL CORNERFT383 15“Horrible disaster in the time of
Julius Cæsar;remains from it not
reaching this earth till the time of
the Bishop of Cloyne” –Fort,Books,
p66.
Julius got short shrift inmy
previous surveys (FT231:21, 232:21)
of Roman emperors, mainly because
in titular terms hewasn’t one.
These amends are based
mainly on his biographiesby
Plutarch and Suetonius. Cæsar’s
own Commentaries on his Civil
and GallicWars, save on military
matters, are personallyreticent,
being written in the third person
(‘Cæsar’, not ‘I’).
Literary oddity: both biographies
have their openingchapters missing,
hence the uncertaintyover his
preciseyear of birth (c. 100 BC).
Of course,great thingswere
expected of one whose birthwas
heraldedby a polydactyl horse,
which he long treasured, though
unlike Caligula never planned to
appoint hisfavourite steed consul.
‘Cæsar’was a nickname. Pliny
(Natural History, bk7ch9 para47) says he
was cut from his motherAurelia’swomb
- hence our ‘Cæsarian section’. Here,
though, time to Call the Midwife.This
procedurewas confined to dead mothers;
Aurelia survived the birthfor manyyears.
TheAugustan History(Life of Aelius,
ch2 para3) offers a gallimaufrey of other
explanations: he killed an elephant (cæsai,
in Moorish) in battle; he had brightgrey
eyes; hewas preternaturally vigorous; he
had a thick head of hair at birth.
Apropos this last, in adulthood hewas
quite bald, an embarrassment he tried to
conceal with comb-overs and triumphal
laurels – naturally, withmymoniker, I have
to say “Bald-wins” – to deflect his rivals’
jokes.
Hewas also mocked for bodily
depilation, including what is known as ‘a
shaven asshole’, this last connected with
the lastingcharge that he had effecteda
pact with the King of Bithyniaby allowing
the latter to bugger him.
Nowyou’ll understandmytitle.
At his Roman triumph, hewas ridiculed
for this in one of his soldiers’ ribald
marching songs. Another counterpointed
this with jokes on hiswomanising in Gaul - a third ditty taunted himfor making
them live on wild cabbages during these
campaigns – Cæsar himselfwas famously
indifferent tofancyfood andabstemious
with booze. Hence, an enemy’s comment
that hewas “the only sober man to wreck
the constitution”.
Likewise, his contrasting sexual images- he had several wives and shaggedvarious
other Eastern queens before Cleopatra - were unimprovably summed upby
another Romanwag: “Cæsar isevery wife’s
husband,every husband’s wife.”
If this sounds like tabloidfare, that
suits the man who gave Rome its first
newspaper (Acta Diurna= ‘Daily Doings; cf.
FT293:23).
Having as ayouth dodged liquidationby
earlier dictator Sulla, he fled to the East,
being capturedby pirates whom heawed
by threatening them with deathrather
than beggingfor mercy – onceransomed,
he hunted them down and crucified the lot - you didn’t mess with Cæsar.
“But Brutus says hewas ambitious”
(Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 2). Bill S. got
that right – the play’s not one of his best
and, anyway, shouldreally be calledBrutus.
Cæsarfamouslywept before a statue of
Alexander the Great:“At this age, he’d
conquered theworld; I’ve done nothing!”
When a colleague laughinglywondered if
a Gallic hamlet theywere passing had its
political battles, Cæsarreplied, “I’d
rather be Number One there than
NumberTwo in Rome.”
One of his manyregrettably lost
bookswas a poem,The Journey,
composed and dictated to an
amanuensis during afour-day ride
on horseback – could Carol Ann
Duffy do this? –Ted Hughes, maybe.
Cæsar opened hisGallicWars
with the plain“All Gaul is divided
into three parts” – like Plato’s soul
or the male genitalia. Bernard Shaw
remarked of this, “Neither true nor
interesting but at least intelligible.”
When filing his finalreport to the
Senate (Pliny,NH, bk.ch25 para96)
Cæsar claimed he had killed
1,192,000 men,women, andchildren- how did he manage so precisea
tally?
That fateful March game of Ides
and Seekwas predictably heralded
with ultra-spectacular portents:
celestialwarriors, comets, lightning
from clear skies, talking cattle,
volcanic eruptions –you name it.
Plusworkmen demolishing old
tombsfound an inscription predicting his
assassination.
No surprise, then, that thenumber
of stab-wounds should be thatever-
mysterious 23, a frequent FT topic.
‘Cæsar’s Comet’, described in its
Wikipedia entry as the brightest one in
recorded history, was not (as sometimes
said) Halley’s – the latter appeared in 12
BC (connectedby some with the Christian
Star of Bethlehem) and during Nero’sreign
in AD 66.
Et tu, Brute?must be history’s most
famousdyingwords. But, did Cæsar
actually utter them? Otherversions have
him Greeklygroan“And you, myson?” - perhaps inspiredby the rumour that
Brutuswas actually his son sired in an
intrigue with the latter’s mother Servile - unlikely, Cæsar being only 15 at the
time – hewas no stranger to paternity
suits: a friend, Oppius, rushed outa
pamphlet denying that Cleopatra’s baby
boy Cæsarionwas his. A third has him only
producing “certain sounds” – doubtless the
Latin equivalent of“Aaaaaargh!”
None of these hold a candle to the
KennethWilliams Cæsar (Carry On, Cleo)
lament, often described as the funniest
film one-liner: “Infamy! Infamy!They’ve
all got it infor me!”
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