A True Story

Plutarch, 46-119 CE

 

Looking back, the people said that 

as for Crassus, the many virtues of the man 

were over-shadowed by an all-consuming vice:

 

his avarice. He owned more properties 

in Rome than any other, obtained 

by means of battle and ambition.

 

Catastrophes supplied him

with a revenue, for years. Seeing

how angrily and often 

 

the houses of the common-folk 

were eaten up in flames (among 

the intermittent conflagrations

 

to which the capital was prone), he built 

a private company 

of slaves who in a former life 

 

had served as architects and engineers, 

and all the while compelled 

the charred and frantic families below

 

to sell their sites and holdings on the cheap, 

or even to bequeath to him, their keeper, 

what they owned. Gradually, most of Rome 

 

descended to his personal possession. 

Secure in wealth, he turned 

to cultivating eloquence: the currency 

 

of power in the courts. While there, 

he never once appeared 

without having first prepared his words 

 

in full. What made him popular, they say, 

was the courtesy of tone he brought to bear 

on even idle matters. However humble 

 

or obscure his interlocutors in passing, invariably 

the regal man would hold their gaze, 

addressing them by name. So cleanly 

 

clipped in manner, politically he nonetheless 

imbued his speech with clouded ambiguities, 

impossible to grasp. No certain cause 

 

impelled him but his own – and that was undeclared. 

He often argued roundly both in favour and against 

the measures in dispute. A leader grown, 

 

he commandereed the fear 

and admiration of the crowd. When asked 

why Crassus was the only magistrate 

 

he left in peace, unlobbied, unharrangued, 

cunning Sincinius replied, that wealthy man 

has hay between his horns – it being customary 

 

around the cobbled market-squares 

to decorate with hay 

the mauling brows of killer-bulls, that ordinary

 

people might be spared. The centurions 

who followed him, he bullied into glory. 

After blundering the slaughter 

 

of the escapees of Capua – riff-raff 

insurrectionists, gladiator-led, who put his spears 

recurringly to rout – he took ten squads 

 

of fifty men a-piece, his own, and had them 

nominate five soldiers to be flayed: an antiquated habit, 

out of use, designed to punish and humiliate 

 

the lowly in the ranks. Converted to ascendancy, 

the remaining infantry were ready 

to be led again against the Thracian renegade:

 

Spartacus the animal, rampaging in the south. 

His boltered, cross-uplifted limbs 

were joyously debased – the victory indubitable. 

 

Crassus himself, at sixty-one, was ousted 

by a Parthian, dethroned while bringing order 

to the kingdom and its tribes. His comely, harried

 

head, they say, was severed from his body; never found.

 

 

The General

Plutarch, 46-119 CE

 

Caesar’s talent as an orator

was promising – and rough. Knowing this, 

he cannily requested of his listeners

 

that they not judge his plain, pragmatic style 

by the standards of the senators, his rivals:

he was a warrior at heart, and spent his time

 

in pugilistic service to the state;

the long sonorities of ventilated speech 

were for other men to master. The commoners

 

adored him with a roar: their veteran protector, 

ever-brave. He had won. Even trusted sub-commanders 

marvelled at the physical resilience of their lord,

 

undergoing hardships that he seemed, at first, 

unlikely to survive. For Caesar was emaciate 

in person, his skin an olive-pale. He suffered

 

hidden headaches, repeatedly was prey 

to epileptic fits, his body writhing mutely 

in a storm. He rarely slept, and when he did

 

was often seen to slumber in transition – when 

waiting with his retinue for battle, or borne 

in haste along the conquered thoroughfares.

 

Two secretaries, learned slaves, followed 

always in his wake, freshening his words. 

Once, when seeking passage through the Alps, he stayed

 

his horse amid a scattering of huts, studying 

the scene. Tuning out the ambient palaver of his men, 

immersed in quiet thought, he finally proclaimed:

 

I would rather be the first, the leading citizen 

in this ungodly village plot

than serve as an associate in Rome. His loyal

 

amanuensis recorded the remark. Inscrutabilities 

aside, to Caesar war was like a tonic to the sick, 

raising him to majesty and passion: the reason

 

he is honoured, even now. By tenacity and intuition, 

tactically combined, he killed a million heretics in Gaul, 

pummelling the land. His capacity for inspiration

 

had spurred his men to butcher unrelentingly for Rome, 

repelling from the margins the barbarous and brute.

The mighty Vergentorix lay a-tremble at the end:

 

kneeling under Caesar’s boots, he murmured 

his surrender, bloody-mouthed, his people 

having sunk like rain into the ground.

 

Assenting, Caesar tossed him to the chariots for sport.