Mark Twain's sketches, new and old now first published in complete form |
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THE KILLING OF JULIUS CÆSAR “LOCALIZED.” |
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 | Mark Twain's sketches, new and old |  |
THE KILLING OF JULIUS CÆSAR “LOCALIZED.”
Being the only true and reliable account ever published; taken from the Roman “Daily
Evening Fasces,” of the date of that tremendous occurrence.
Nothing in the world affords a newspaper reporter so much satisfaction
as gathering up the details of a bloody and mysterious murder, and
writing them up with aggravating circumstantiality. He takes a living
delight in this labor of love—for such it is to him especially if he knows that
all the other papers have gone to press, and his will be the only one that will
contain the dreadful intelligence. A feeling of regret has often come over me
that I was not reporting in Rome when Cæsar was killed—reporting on an
ahead of the morning paper boys with this most magnificent “item” that ever
fell to the lot of the craft. Other events have happened as startling as this, but
none that possessed so peculiarly all the characteristics of the favorite “item”
of the present day, magnified into grandeur and sublimity by the high rank,
fame, and social and political standing of the actors in it.
However, as I was not permitted to report Cæsar's assassination in the regular
way, it has at least afforded me rare satisfaction to translate the following able
account of it from the original Latin of the Roman Daily Evening Fasces of that
date—second edition.
“Our usually quiet city of Rome was thrown into a state of wild excitement yesterday by the
occurrence of one of those bloody affrays which sicken the heart and fill the soul with fear, while
they inspire all thinking men with forebodings for the future of a city where human life is held so
cheaply, and the gravest laws are so openly set at defiance. As the result of that affray, it is our painful
duty, as public journalists, to record the death of one of our most esteemed citizens—a man
whose name is known wherever this paper circulates, and whose fame it has been our pleasure and
our privilege to extend, and also to protect from the tongue of slander and falsehood, to the best of
our poor ability. We refer to Mr. J. Cæsar, the Emperor-elect.
“The facts of the case, as nearly as our reporter could determine them from the conflicting statements
of eye-witnesses, were about as follows.—The affair was an election row, of course. Nine-tenths
of the ghastly butcheries that disgrace the city now-a-days grow out of the bickerings and
jealousies and animosities engendered by these accursed elections. Rome would be the gainer by
it if her very constables were elected to serve a century; for in our experience we have never even been
able to choose a dog-pelter without celebrating the event with a dozen knock-downs and a general
cramming of the station-house with drunken vagabonds over-night. It is said that when the
immense majority for Cæsar at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown
was offered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not
sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and
other hirelings of the disappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth
and other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically and contemptuously of Mr.
Cæsar's conduct upon that occasion.
“We are further informed that there are many among us who think they are justified in believing
that the assassination of Julius Cæsar was a put-up thing—a cut-and-dried arrangement,
hatched by Marcus Brutus and a lot of his hired roughs, and carried out only too faithfully according
to the programme. Whether there be good grounds for this suspicion or not, we leave to the people to
judge for themselves, only asking that they will read the following account of the sad occurrence
carefully and dispassionately before they render that judgment.
“The Senate was already in session, and Cæsar was coming down the street towards the capitol,
conversing with some personal friends, and followed as usual, by a large number of citizens. Just
as he was passing in front of Demosthenes and Thucydides' drug-store, he was observing casually
to a gentleman, who, our informant thinks, is a fortune-teller, that the Ides of March were come.
The reply was, `Yes, they are come, but not gone yet.' At this moment Artemidorus stepped up
and passed the time of day, and asked Cæsar to read a schedule or a tract or something of the kind,
which he had brought for his perusal. Mr. Decius Brutus also said something about an `humble
suit' which he wanted read. Artemidorus begged that attention might be paid to his first, because
it was of personal consequence to Cæsar. The latter replied that what concerned himself should
be read last, or words to that effect. Artemidorus begged and beseeched him to read the paper
then entered the capitol, and the crowd followed him.
“About this time the following conversation was overheard, and we consider that, taken in connection
with the events which succeeded it, it bears an appalling significance: Mr. Papilius Lena
remarked to George W. Cassius (commonly known as the `Nobby Boy of the Third Ward'), a
bruiser in the pay of the Opposition, that he hoped his enterprise to-day might thrive; and when
Cassius asked `What enterprise?' he only closed his left eye temporarily and said with simulated
indifference, `Fare you well,' and sauntered towards Cæsar. Marcus Brutus who is suspected of
being the ringleader of the band that killed Cæsar, asked what it was that Lena had said. Cassius told
him, and added in a low tone, `I fear our purpose is discovered.'
“Brutus told his wretched accomplice to keep an eye on Lena, and a moment after Cassius urged
that lean and hungry vagrant, Casca whose reputation here is none of the best, to be sudden for
he feared prevention. He then turned to Brutus, apparently much excited, and asked what should
be done, and swore that either he or Cæsar should never turn back—he would kill himself first. At
this time Cæsar was talking to some of the back-country members about the approaching fall
elections, and paying little attention to what was going on around him. Billy Trebonius got into
other got him away, and Brutus, Decius, Casca, Cinna, Metellus Cimber, and others of the gang of
infamous desperadoes that infest Rome at present, closed around the doomed Cæsar. Then Metellus
Cimber knelt down and begged that his brother might be recalled from banishment, but Cæsar
rebuked him for his fawning conduct, and refused to grant his petition. Immediately, at Cimber's
request, first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the banished Publius; but Cæsar
still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded
to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that star, and its steady character.
Then he said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country that was;
therefore, since he was `constant' that Cimber should be banished, he was also `constant' that he
should stay banished, and he'd be hanged if he didn't keep him so!
“Instantly seizing upon this shallow pretext for a fight, Casca sprang at Cæsar and struck
him with a dirk, Cæsar grabbing him by the arm with his right hand, and launching a blow
straight from the shoulder with his left, that sent the reptile bleeding to the earth. He then backed
up against Pompey's statue, and squared himself to receive his assailants. Cassius and Cimber and
Cinna rushed upon him with their daggers drawn, and the former succeeded in inflicting a wound
upon his body; but before he could strike again, and before either of the others could strike at all,
Cæsar stretched the three miscreants at his feet with as many blows of his powerful fist. By this
time the Senate was in an indescribable uproar; the throng of citizens in the lobbies had blockaded
the doors in their frantic efforts to escape from the building, the sergeant-at-arms and his assistants
were struggling with the assassins, venerable senators had cast aside their encumbering robes, and
were leaping over benches and flying down the aisles in wild confusion towards the shelter of the
committee-rooms, and a thousand voices were shouting `Po-lice! Po-lice!' in discordant tones that
rose above the frightful din like shrieking winds above the roaring of a tempest. And amid it all,
great Cæsar stood with his back against the statue, like a lion at bay, and fought his assailants
weaponless and hand to hand, with the defiant bearing and the unwavering courage which he had
shown before on many a bloody field. Billy Trebonius and Caius Legarius struck him with their
daggers and fell, as their brother-conspirators before them had fallen. But at last, when Cæsar
saw his old friend Brutus step forward armed with a murderous knife, it is said he seemed utterly
overpowered with grief and amazement, and dropping his invincible left arm by his side, he hid his
face in the folds of his mantle and received the treacherous blow without an effort to stay the hand
that gave it. He only said, `Et tu, Brute?' and fell lifeless, on the marble pavement.
“We learn that the coat deceased had on when he was killed was the same he wore in his tent on
the afternoon of the day he overcame the Nervii, and that when it was removed from the corpse it
was found to be cut and gashed in no less than seven different places. There was nothing in the
killing. These latter facts may be relied on, as we get them from Mark Antony, whose position
enables him to learn every item of news connected with the one subject of absorbing interest of
to-day.
“Later.—While the coroner was summoning a jury, Mark Antony and other friends of the
late Cæsar got hold of the body, and lugged it off to the Forum, and at last accounts Antony and
Brutus were making speeches over it and raising such a row among the people that, as we go to
press, the chief of police is satisfied there is going to be a riot, and is taking measures accordingly.”
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