LI
I
spent the day after the Ides in long periods of sleep, among which
Cornelia continuously gave me her brewings. The following morning I
knew that Antonius and Lepidus had called the Senate to meet up and
discuss about the convenience of forgiving the….Plotters. I felt
adamant to call them assassins. Just as I rebelled against the fact
that that being who – I would rather say which
–was lying in the Vestals’ house, reduced to an unrecognizable
despoil, had been you. Notwithstanding all this, I could not stop
thinking about Portia….
–Yes,
Calpurnia…Who knows if, definitely, it is…Cato’s spirit who has
handled his son-in-law in this plot… Which role could Portia have
played?
Cornelia
had taken advantage of the fact that Marcia was not around, so that
she could comfort me …. And be sincere to me. I then knew that I
had to speak out to her in spite of my prostration.
–Kornel
… Here….Before Caesar….
Her
look had lost her usual firmness.
–It
must have been a desperate decision that he had to take when he saw
Decimus Brutus come in… Didn’t you know that he devoted himself
to watching over Domus
Publica
since he learnt about the Senate’s extraordinary summon on the
Ides? He asked me to provide him with a group of armed man in order
to protect him. Of course, since you have stayed here all the time,
you can’t have noticed all that strange stir around Porticus
Margaritariae
which was aroused by this man, looking like a noble Roman and dressed
as an aruspex,
hanging around, surrounded by his serfs, even very late at night…
Yesterday he also spent all the day sleeping with the help of
brewings, as a complement of all those techniques he uses to
harmonize both his mental and bodily balance. He’s not the kind of
man who externalizes his feelings… But I know how he must have
felt. In spite of the distance, he had always been hanging on….your
husband, partly because this man so much reminded him of himself,
though he was convinced that there were many Mariuses inside Caesar,
and also due to his being Aurelia’s son… No, she never aroused
any suspicions since, as you know, all Iulii are and have been like
Gaius and have had the same bright slender beauty. And I also know
that, in spite of returning to his usual life at the temple of
Venus-Astarte, things won’t be the same for him… Don’t worry;
he won’t forget to say goodbye to you. Something you must do from
now on is to start thinking about how to channel your life in the
near future. The next Pontifex
Maximus
will need Domus
Publica ….I
imagine that…the Egyptian…won’t take long to go back to Egypt.
No doubt she must be frightened right now… The house and gardens
are superb, you know. Far from Palatine Hill, though. But you can
also stay in my place as long as you wish…
I
knew that she was sincere. But… living with Kornel’s presence
around whenever he came to Rome? Not to mention Cornelia’s fondness
of young well-built slaves… I dropped my head on her lap, silent,
unable to go on thinking… Yes, perhaps it was true that all of this
had not been a wicked plot that Kornel and she had schemed, as you
had made me believe. “…He
intended me to go on owing him my life and glory till my old age…”
He could only get himself a victory over me by depriving me of what’s
most precious for me as a man, my trust in an unblemished wife, the
most virtuous one of all Roman patricians”
Might these have been your last thoughts? How right could you have
really been?
–Yes,
Calpurnia. –Marcia had just arrived. –Your father is going to
take charge of…all. Remember that’s a
paterfamilias’
task, but… well, you know .On the other hand, there’s something
that…. worries me. You know that it should correspond to him to
give the funeral speech. But this will be done by… Antonius!
Calpurnia!! How on earth is your father able to yield to whatever
thing imposed by that….
–…That
fellow who, unlike what should be expected, was not in Curia
Pompeiana
when everything happened. He certainly owes us some explanation about
all this dealing with your husband’s murderers!
–You
know that politics and the safety of Rome frequently demand this of
him.
–Calpurnia!!!
They
both watched me in awe.
– It’s
your husband who has been killed! There should not be any room in
your heart for any pitiful understanding on this issue at all!
–How
couldn’t I realize it? –After so many days’ languor, my voice
sounded tense again. – Aren’t you aware of what you’re both
hinting at…?.
–What
most Roman senators imagine and we don’t dare saying aloud. Who can
trust a consul who, being the Dictator’s representative in Rome,
takes advantage of it by setting up a wandering circus with
elephants, prostitutes, acrobats, fortune-tellers… that he exhibits
all around Italy?.
–Fortunately,
Caesar reacted on time and dismissed him from his position as his
magister
militum.
–Quite
predictable of him… Can you expect any other response to such a
humiliation coming from Clodii’s accomplice?
They
both stayed with me and Atia on the stand that had been appointed in
the Forum
for the female relatives who would attend the funeral rite. Before
that, my family had read your will. As you had told me, youth
Octavius had been chosen as your successor
and,
besides, there were other heirs such as that unmentionable Decimus
Brutus…But why? Was this the way you rewarded fifteen years’
cloistered loyalty? I was not mentioned at all… You obviously
relied on my father’s wealth. I felt some kind of sterile relief
when I saw that both the Egyptian and your offspring had also been
excluded. Besides, I learnt that I would not be sent to the domus
on the other riverbank: like your gardens, it had become a public
place, thanks to your bountiful donation to Roman people, which also
included the fact of guaranteeing each Roman an amount of wheat and a
pension which would provide a living for so many parasites who have
always hung around Rome, protected by the Senate and their tribunes….
–Gods…
my child… My heart was slowly going into pieces as I kept reading
it. That’s how your virtue has been paid for… I would never have
expected that…. The most painful thing is that neither of us is
mentioned in the whole will… Anyway, you know that I will make sure
that you may have everything you need. If you like, you can come home
or even Herculaneum … or Pompeii, if you wish so.
The
musicians were approaching. Their fifes invaded the massive silence
around the Forum…. Everybody knew that this was a historical day,
specially so many war veterans among whom I could make out an amazing
number of swollen faces, reddened with crying… and all those Jews
from Subura,
as so many other individuals belonging to many different races who
may also be Suburans,
former neighbours of yours… Then the procession of the imagines
came
along. They were the Iulii who have preceded you: your father, uncles
and aunts, grandmother, cousins… wax faces, so like one another,
rhythmically going onwards…Aurelia….What would she have thought…
when meeting back that wax ghost who had been her husband, he that
had possibly made her shake with passion, and then her own work, her
son, statue-like, rigid, with that strangely rebuilt face…. How did
they manage to achieve it? Solemnly upright, cushioned on that ivory
lectus
which was to be laid inside that copy of the temple of Venus which
had been erected in front of the rostra
.This was the first time that I could see you after the Ides’
morning .Unlike what should be expected, I did not feel any kind of
tearing pain or violent shock. I just experienced curiosity and some
profound amazement to see myself watching you impassively, as if you
were one more funeral mask, but, nevertheless, feeling that icy grey
look which did not exist anymore, questioning me, reminding me that
Cleopatra had more dignity than I… You had been dressed with the
Pontifex
Maximus’ toga.
Up above, the cold wind stirred the dry blood-drenched remnants of
the attire which you were wearing that day when you reminded me my
weakness. Maybe you kept on brooding over your frustration, even at
the very moment that you collapsed, bleeding yourself away, becoming
a lifeless drained carcass.
Finally
the glorious moment came for… what could I say about Antonius by
now? Your former magister
equitum
and cousin Lucius’ nephew put on his usual grief-looking face,
mounted on the stairs leading to the rostra
with grave bearing, slightly stooped… Something quite predictable
of someone who is a close friend of actors and acrobats. His voice,
which I had never heard publicly before, thundered, keeping fitful
pauses to catch the attention of that serenely grief-stricken crowd.
The oratio
unfolded quite in Antonius’ line, according to some kind of
double-dealing, perhaps the same game that he used to play during
Senate meetings, considering the plotters’ honour and his doubts
about whether you had been a real tyrant or a benefactor. As you can
imagine, he did not forget to announce them that you had included
Roman people in your will and how generous you had shown yourself to
them. –“In
fact it’s no more that what each of his legionaries is usually paid
after a war campaign “,
my father had cleared out. –For the first time in my life, I really
started admiring Antonius’ peerless skill…Mainly when, just after
finishing his speech, he began to go down the stairs slowly, aware of
the tangible effect that his words had made on that human tide…
It
was then when he suddenly uttered a shriek which startled even those
of us who knew him and fell on the funeral lectus,
sobbing like a mourner, shaking convulsively on your purple and
crimson toga… All of us, including Atia, looked at each other, both
puzzled and embarrassed… According to what we could understand, he
seemed to lament that injustice which you had suffered before the
dead eyes of all your wax-reincarnated ancestry, consciously swept by
his hysteria, which drove the musicians to play their fifes louder
and louder, just like accomplices of that histrionic performer who
had succeeded in catching everyone’s attention…. A yell beyond
human nature, coming not only from me but also from the whole crowd,
smothered his performance .I felt my friends’ hands firmly hold me
while I was trying to look down and avoid watching what was
happening. There you stood: alive again, mechanical, spinning around
after Antonius had taken your toga
off
and, almost with fruition, started to point at each of the
twenty-three bloody cracks which had been marked all over your body,
still beautiful despite your deadly paleness…
–Gods…
I could not imagine this… that he could be so ignominious. Not even
from his could I have expected it… Poor Calpurnia….
Marcia’s
voice buzzed in my ears… Was yours that eerie, grey-blue, piercing
look… That which I made out in the crowd on the other side of the
rostra,
coming from that ivory face, surrounded by red-golden braids….?
Some violent roaring swarm hid the vision that I had before my eyes,
followed by a turmoil which was alien to the fifes and Antonius’
shrieks.
-They
are destroying the benches and platform! Look, Calpurnia…They
intend to burn
it
up instead of taking it to Campus
Martius
!
Yes,
I had noticed some huge blazing torches that soon turned into some
warm horrible-smelling crackle. Immediately afterward, a forest of
flames rose up beyond the temples and all of Rome… I would have
stayed there, motionless, if I had not been hastily flown away, with
no time to send for my litter. We had to rush to Domus
Publica,
the only safe place in town that evening… It was then when I grew
really aware of what had happened. Your existence had come to an end
and I should start to bid my farewell to my life in Domus
Publica.
Then, I had to say goodbye to the peristylium
which
Aurelia had filled with trees, over which her hand still seemed to
veil, to the triclinium
where, several times every week, I had shared my dinner with
Cornelia, Marcia…and Portia, to the cubiculum
in
which I had enjoyed the man who had woken up my body not even one
hundred nights… Yes, now that my woe could finally flow throughout
my body and I did not mind the traces that it could leave in my
health, I could eventually behold my real destiny and felt ashamed of
so many years’ aspirations, striving to get an identity which could
save me from all of this that stood before me, as ruthless as that
night’s flames, which, once having eaten away your body, were
swinging in a ritual dance, as if it were part of the funeral
ceremony, trying to beg divine clemency on you …
–Calpurnia….
He has come with me.
Cornelia
had just returned from her house. Both Marcia and she had decided to
spend the night with me. There, in the dark of the room, I made out
the cat-like sparkle of those transparent eyes… As it was usual of
him, he walked on in silence, as if barefooted.
–Calpurnia…
My little one….
I
know he was about to hold me but he restrained himself.
– I
had to do it…. However, it seems that we can’t escape from what
is destined to us. I had heard something about a likely conspiracy
but I didn’t want to worry you. Besides, I didn’t know who were
involved in it… No, I would have never imagined that Brutus might
let himself be convinced by those graffiti….
I think that Cato’s spirit has really won… Why are you looking
so surprised, Calpurnia? Beyond this physical life there are plots
that we don’t know. Don’t discard your fear that Portia and her
husband are no more than simple instruments… I have come not only
to show you my affection but also to go with you two if you want to
fetch…well, you know. Your father has gone to get himself some rest
after all these sleepless days and nights, having to arrange it all.
I
had to accept his offering, though I rebelled against the idea of
having a fistful of singed bones and undefined ashes in my hands. No,
I could not accept it…. We left in Cornelia’s litter at dawn. I
watched twilight-tinged Roman sky and air, coloured like those
gems....Some sort of creak shook that intangible part of my inner
self which was about to crack. In front of the rostra
there was only a heap of still smoking ashes.
–The
rabble has spent all the night here. Therefore, as you can imagine,
they have taken it all. It’s been really mad-like… Even many
matrons’ jewels and their children’s bullae.
All of them, melted as an oblation to beg divine Julius’
protection… But this wasn’t the only reason why I have made you
leave Domus
Publica.
The
litter turned back up on Palatine Hill. Once we had arrived at the
entrance of Cornelia’s domus,
we got off and went through the atrium towards the tablinium,
just in front of the altar where the imagines of Gens
Cornelia’s Sullan
branch are kept. As the day before during the funeral ceremony, my
friend held me to prevent me from fainting. You were lying there, on
a tortoiseshell lectus
with purple cushions on it, neatly dressed with your toga
trabea.
I could even feel those clear piercing eyes under your closed eyelids
and scrutinized your wax-like face… But the utter lack of the
scarce hair that you still had that fateful morning and your
flawless-chiselled features, which had no traces of having been
ruthlessly massacred, made me watch you more closely.
– Quite
a cunning trick, so predictable of such a schemer as Antonius is…
Having a life –size wax articulated effigy devised. Fortunately, I
found a place next to the rostra
so
that I could rescue it just immediately before the pyre started to
burn…. No, I don’t think that Antonius, being so enraptured by
his own speech, would be aware that his invention had vanished amidst
all that uproar, hidden behind all those wooden pieces heaped up in
front of the funeral lectus…Nevertheless,
having been responsible for the arrangement of the funeral ceremony,
your father ought to have foreseen all this….
I
am sure that, deep down inside, he knew the reasons why Lucius
Calpurnius had not told me anything about this.
–My
initial intention was to keep it to myself so that it could be taken
to where I know Caesar would have liked to have it, inside the temple
of Venus
Marina,
his patroness, in his favourite town in Hispania… But, first of
all, I had to ask you for permission just in case you wished to keep
it…
I
deeply watched those large-striped folds which hid the vigorous hands
that twinned those who had caressed me so occasionally, those angular
cheekbones, that sharpened nose…No more aged or worn-out due to
campaigning and endless exposure to broad sunlight….
–Cornelia…
You have offered me to stay in your home until I can get myself a new
domus
…
Cornelia
looked at me, heartily assenting.
–May
I…how could I say it… enjoy its company until Kornel decides to
ship it away….? On which exact spot would you put it…?
– Inside
the deepest cave, next to his mother Venus, that which was carved
with the flashes of several kinds of gems and looks like having been
begotten by twilight beams within the sea waves that caress the
stairs of the temple… Calpurnia… You mustn’t forget that
initiating process you have gone through during all these years and
everything you have achieved, something that has never been bestowed
on any priestess, no matter how long she might have served her
deities….That capacity of yours to let you inner self flow and
merge into other forces… Your nature is so like mine, even though
half your blood belongs to such a speculator as Lucius Calpurnius
Piso is. You’ve got a duty to the life energy that feeds the world
… I’m not asking you to cloister yourself away from Rome and your
people forever. I just insist that you have
the right to devote seasons, maybe in springtime and summer, the time
in which sailing away is advisable, to grow and develop that wisdom I
know you treasure inside, beyond simple ointments that might have
been useful for you in some given circumstances of your nearest past.
Only there you’ll be able to thoroughly study how to heal body and
mind through the different light shades of each gem… This will lead
you to deepen into the knowledge of everything you have been given by
your ancestors, the most sublime ones, those who enlightened
Tyrrhenians and the inhabitants of Gaul and Britannia… and even
those wise men from our oriental provinces and even the lands beyond
the Danubius river, still alien to Rome. Do not dismiss it,
Calpurnia…You’re bound to learn about your heart rhythms, the
beating of that ethereal force you’ve got inside and that potential
capacity to generate life… Who knows if your barrenness has only
been due to your ignorance about how to channel that force, something
that so many years’ limitations forbade you to correct. Calpurnia,
now it’s time for you to open yourself to life though these days
have been really fateful… Remember we have just celebrated Anna
Perenna’s
festivity…
I
kept staring at the three of them –your effigy, Kornel and Cornelia
– for a long while....
And
here I am, finally ending this huge epistola
that
I decided to start writing that day in front of your effigy. First,
in Cornelia’s tablinium,
then, while sailing towards Gades and, whenever I could do it, in
those months that I spent in the temple of Venus
Marina....
perhaps driven by your spirit, which might now be trying to penetrate
into my inner self, that which you could not possess after so many
years’ lifeless marriage and which would have made you blame Kornel
for having deprived you of it, even while you were bleeding to death?
Yes... who knows if this may be your subtle force, flowing from that
place where you might be dwelling , aiming at taking back something
that you used to consider legitimately yours, spilling through these
silent words... I must silence my voice right now, when my womb is
brimming with life. I am not Calpurnia Caesaris any
more, though I’m making myself ready to return to Rome and temporarily
share a small domus
with
Marcia on Palatine Hill, next to my father’s. It is now when a new
life is about to open up and I have the responsibility to channel it,
teaching it all that I have learnt in such a way that it might not be
at odds with Roman patrician world.
I
have begged Kornel not to remove these manuscripts off your lap.
Fortunately, who shaped you hands –so firm and slender –made sure
that they were skilfully articulated, so as to properly grip the case
containing them. Do not worry about the seal: it is yours, the same
one that I used on those scarce occasions when I wrote to you. I
managed to save it from Antonius’ claws.
It
will be strange not to look at your face in such a long time...
Anyway, it will not be longer than when you were alive....
Farewell,
my lord...Do enjoy being worshipped by those who also venerate your
ancestor, that who was born out of the sea foam, in the town which
you loved most apart from Rome
Calpurnia
Pisonis Caesonina
October,
the year in which Gaius Iulius Caesar became Divus
Iulius
