Chapter Text
Antonius Cassio s.p.d.
The wax was lumpy, uneven, it must’ve had melted in the heat earlier in the day, and his stylus caught on one of the lumps once again, ending the greeting in a scraggly line. Better to switch to papyrus instead.
Antony wasn’t used to writing letters in person. These days, he dictated his messages when he had to, usually terse and practical, sometimes snarky and irreverent, and he had always preferred speaking anyway, shouting his encouragement to his troops until his voice gave out, though not until the battle was over, a minor favor from Mars in return of keeping him bloated with sacrifices.
Octavian, now, that one had been writing as if he had inherited Caesar’s ease with words together with the title, though upon a closer look both were frayed at the edges. Octavian wouldn’t have had any doubt of what to write to Cassius. He’d have jumped at the chance to send a list of conditions, brutal enough to make them shiver, and yet unable to hide the glee of a victor who’d never been to the frontlines.
Antony preferred proscriptions, on the whole. At least then neither Octavian nor he had needed to pretend anything but vengeance.
In the end, Octavian would probably make sure to order a damnatio memoriae of Antony’s name and anything he’d ever written, including this letter, so there really wasn’t need to worry about it. And still.
What do you write to your enemy, who knows you better than anyone in your own camp?
Antony had thought he had left all his ghosts back in Rome.
He hadn’t expected to miss them, here between the barren hills, but here he was, and he wondered if he could tell Cassius just that.
Think of your ancestors, think of the Republic, think of your men, is what he wrote instead. None of them were real for Antony anymore: not the ancestors, not the Republic, not even the men; he barely felt real himself in this strange land, especially when the light hit as it did right then, too yellow, too bright, turning the sky past blue and into an eerie, shimmering violet just before the sunset.
It was too scraggly to be a proper desert. Brambles and shrubs and an occasional lizard, all in washed-out greens and smudged browns, with screeches of faraway birds as the only sounds to break the empty silence. They’d allocated plenty of space for taverns, but songs and jokes had been suffocated by the endless sandstorms, or perhaps Antony could no longer hear them over his own thoughts.
If this had been Gaul, Antony would’ve forced himself outside, made the rounds among the rank and file, attempted some of the more rotten jokes, eventually, drunk them under the table, all swagger and assurance, all as standard procedure for him as checking the buckles on his armor and oiling his sword at night.
If this had been Gaul, Antony wouldn’t need to be writing any letters. He would've been idly chatting with Caesar sitting at his desk, writing deep into the night. Antony would’ve made fun of how Caesar insisted on speaking of himself in the third person, and Caesar would’ve cursed him for insolence, and Antony would’ve laughed, briefly, brazenly, staring his commander in the face, all challenge on the surface, and then – gods how he missed him.
Antony realized he had stopped writing. It had been two years, and most of the time Antony was able to just go on with the next twist in this interminable war, the next death to be avenged, the next meeting of what Octavian had insisted calling his war council, but sometimes the grief still hit him out of nowhere, so hard he could barely breathe.
Was he truly missing Caesar, or Cassius, or himself? Who he had used to be, back in Gaul?
More importantly, was Cassius missing who he used to be, before the Ides? Before Pharsalus? Before Carrhae? Back then they both had been upstart favorites of the commanders who had tried to yoke Rome to their ambition, and for a while everyone thought that they were actually going to succeed.
Neither of them had ever had any wish to become the face of the Republic either then or now, though Cassius knew that Octavian – he would never say Caesar – was not exactly Antony’s choice, and he wonders whether Brutus would've actually been Cassius’s. If he had had a choice.
But history was about as subtle as a pile of rocks, so all Antony could do was be grateful that at least he had Cassius to face across the battlefield. He’d have no chance with Brutus, and he’d never even considered suggesting a truce to Octavian. Agrippa, now, if he weren’t so hopelessly loyal…
Cura ut valeas, Antony signed off with entirely too much familiarity – but nobody else was going to see this letter anyway – and wished he could’ve added something else, something that would make Cassius see the futility of this battle. They might as well be staging their armies in the arena. That gladiator, as Cicero used to call Antony, until he began thinking of himself as one, but Cassius had said it first.
Would Cassius agree? Would he be able to forgive Antony just long enough to read his note?
Antony had called for his trusted messenger an hour ago, and he was becoming sick of waiting. There had been a battle today, certainly, but it wasn’t anything decisive, and he knew exactly what his plans were for the following day, so did his troops, and if he had to sit through another council with Octavian tonight, he’d start tearing his own skin off.
Instead, Antony tore the piece of the papyrus apart and threw it into the fire.
It must’ve been all these memories of Gaul that he had awakened, of half-mad forays, one risky maneuver after another until they had the entire province.
One risky maneuver after another until they had Rome, he added in his mind, and forced himself to stop at that.
If Antony got cut down for skulking around the enemy camp, it would’ve only served him right, and for all that he’d been complaining about Agrippa, he did trust him to lead the troops tomorrow. As long as Octavian remained in his tent with another bout of sickness.
Wrapped in a cloak, Antony quietly stepped out of his tent just as dusk was beginning to fall. Passing the soft light of the oil lamps, he thought of another dimly-lit tent, no, a house, a wine shop somewhere in the alleys of the Esquiline. It had been early October too.