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It’s been nearly a decade since she was ‘saved’ from the grueling camp made by the late Pompey the Great’s hand, and Brutus still hadn’t felt any better since the day she was forced to leave. The golden cage she was in never changed, for it remained a cage in and of itself, even if guarded by ‘greatness’ and empty gifts of affection.
The senatewoman position was another one of these empty gifts given to Brutus with the promise of being seen. “A privilege greater than any womanly position!” They would tell her with such snarky smiles; it couldn’t help but make something inside Brutus crack. “Rome has never seen a ‘senatewoman’ in their life!”
And indeed Rome was yet to see a senatewoman on the marble steps of the Senate Forum. A woman ‘intruding’ into a group filled with aristocratic men, young and old– how odd. The Romans could even go so far as to call her an anomaly amongst the system (in ‘a good way’ of course). It was fantastic, a once-in-a-lifetime reward that Brutus didn’t even think she deserved from the true ruler of the Republic. And every morning, the ornatrices gifted by him would dress Brutus in the finest silks that he asked her to wear for the Senate meetings, all being high-priced fabrics made from places like Ptolemaic Egypt and Han China.
These robes of white linen would drape amongst robes of deep red in the texture of gorgeous silk, some tucked under her arm and the rest of it just pinned to her in order to keep Brutus’ womanly shape still. Her curls of dark brown would then either be tied up in an intricate braid, or down completely, brushed out until her ladies were convinced it was good enough. She was supposed to stand out against the men, of course, but at the same time ‘not bring too much attention to herself’, whatever that was supposed to mean. This whole catastrophe to Brutus was still a privilege from her Elders, and one that he could take back anytime he wanted.
_
“Look at this! I give you the world, and you look at me as if I gifted you simple bread.” She remembered the older man chuckling silently to himself, a passing wave of his hand coming to the flies that stuck around them as they walked the gravel path. It was supposed to be a joke, of course, but it didn’t come out that way. None of what he said was ever to be taken lightly when he held Rome in the palm of his hands. Hell, he knew that!
“I am appreciative of what you have done for me, Caesar,” Brutus had responded flatly to him, her eyes staring beyond the steps of the empty Roman Forum and to the greyish sky. The weather was cool on her bare-ish skin despite the petulant insects around them, and it would have cooled her mood completely if it wasn’t ‘Gaius Julius Caesar’ who was next to her. She knew he wouldn’t believe any blatant lies she told him this evening, or whatever it was, but Julius wouldn’t say anything about it. The man could listen to complete myths told by Decimus at night as if they were facts and be more than pleased, so how’d this make a difference?
“Ah, that I know you are.” Caesar accepted with a nod and a proud smile. “You would have never stuck by me for so many years if you didn’t appreciate what I have given you. Though I must warn you, Brute, that other men in charge are not as graceful as I am…”
Brutus had stopped in her tracks at his words, immediately triggered by the short, fleet of his clear warning and the sudden feeling of being watched at the hairs on the back of her neck. Caesar, however, didn’t look pleased or displeased at it.
“...What others do you speak of?” Brutus asked sternly, though she couldn’t help the difficult tremor that broke down her words. Meanwhile, the older man’s head cocked to the side ever so slightly at the nervous question, his dark cyan eyes rolling up for a moment ‘in thought’ before he laughed darkly, giving the senatewoman a sudden hard pat on the back as he usually does once he moves on from something.
“Does not matter!” He persuaded with a crooked smile, “I only warn you of others’ opinions, who know not as I, Brute. Come. Before you go back home to Porcius, help me with the festivities…”
The Roman dictator did not actually wait for her, as Julius was already walking away as fast as he had once crossed the Rubicon River. Concurrently, Brutus stayed put, thinking for a moment over what he had told her, or more so, dismissed.
It was a warning, of course. A fair and nice thing about people who might be suspicious that she is not as happy as she forced herself to proclaim she is, and they’d be right, though that doesn’t particularly mean she wished to downright ‘quit’ her job. After all, it’s all she has left that is technically hers, but even that can be debatable in the question of who gave her the powers in the first place (it’d be Caesar).
And so, Brutus hurried along to catch up with the man ahead, alongside the fading shadow of the Republic.
“Yes, Caesar.”
_
Julius Caesar was a man who was not just reckless in his military but also capricious with Rome and others. He’d say one thing and mean the other; condemn one action only to do the exact same years later and then pretend that he had never condemned it in the first place.
But why hold such expectations towards someone who held Rome, which was once a Republic, in the palm of his hand and molded it into something completely different: a paradise of dictatorship where the people of Rome served him and thanked him for ‘taking it all away’? Nobody seemed to want to answer that question of Brutus, as they were simply too scared of his power. Scared of his condemnation, and what had happened to the countless Republicans before them who had simply killed themselves with their own swords, swearing that they’d rather die than live with a king once again.
But did they die for nothing or ‘for the good of the Republic’ as they proclaimed they did? Were these men simply jealous enemies of what Caesar was trying to bless Rome with, or did they secretly have a point in the fights of which they came? Were they wrong? Was Cato the Younger, her own half-uncle who practically helped raise her, foolish for what he did? Alas, Brutus shall never know until she experiences it herself.
But one thing was sure: Caesar had told them all that his upcoming rule would be the ‘solution’ to the never-ending civil wars of the past, and the continuation of what was to be done. A benevolent dictator, or, more so, as senators would dare to say, a hypocritical tyrant.
Julius had stood taller than others, and in her memory, he was draped in a cloak of purple that would one day stain blood red, with a wrinkled hand outstretched to the people below him in solidarity. The people would cheer and cry at his feet in these celebratory mornings, which made his mouth twist into a secretive smirk, almost menacing even if meant to be kind.
To Brutus’ conscience, she saw Julius much differently than she ever saw the previous triumvir she had once worked with against the dictator all those years ago. Where Pompey was reticent, Caesar was charismatic. Where Pompey was cautious, Caesar was reckless. And finally, where Pompey was ‘brutal’, Caesar was ‘merciful’.
But Pompey was long dead, as he had been for the past eight years. It was pointless to look back on a ghost so long ago who wasn’t even half of what he commanded of people, and especially one who abandoned his own flank, but they were both equally as ambitious to get what they wanted; Caesar was just faster.
_
“What do you think of the new trades, Brute?” Brutus remembered a distant voice asking her, though in her state of zoning out, she couldn’t answer it. The words funneled out, fusing into inconsequential nonsense as she was too busy staring at the wall, wanting to be anywhere else but here.
“Brute?” The voice called again. Still no answer.
“Brutus…”
“Cinna, if you could quietly get her attention–”
Brutus suddenly felt the hard WHACK of the senator’s hand to her back, making her practically double over the table in pain. She choked quietly over her spat-up wine, wiping her mouth off with a sleeve of red silk. When her dark eyes rolled back up, there was Julius staring over at her at the head of the table, a look of slight disappointment in his gaze. Cinna, the perpetrator who sat right next to her, however, quickly looked away and back at his plate of food before Brutus could unprofessionally tell him off.
“There you are! Don’t tell me you were drifting away from us…” Caesar had teased. Her cheeks turned red as everyone’s attention suddenly shifted to her, the once-warm atmosphere feeling rather quiet now.
“I was just…distracted for a moment, Caesar,” faltered Brutus.
“Of course, because our dear Marcella is prone to forget when things aren’t including her…” Marc Antony slurred so vigorously, filling his winecup until it spilled on the floor for about the fiftieth time tonight. Some men around him chortled and cackled at that, sipping their own wines and chewing on shallow pieces of chicken. But Brutus simply scowled at the general. Marcus had no shame in whatever he said simply because he had turned himself into a pathetic cheerleader to Caesar’s reign if he wasn’t getting drunk off his ass or making a fool out of himself. He’d be one of the first to survive what would come next if he still felt significance in how his life had turned out.
“My name is Brutus–” She attempted to argue, only for Caesar, with a sharp tone of voice, to cut her off completely.
“Please don’t squabble while I am here, Antonius. Do you not know etiquette?"
At the words of the dictator perpetuo, Antony quickly shut his mouth, a sudden silence falling over the ravenous table. And like the sharpness of a blade, it cut completely through his drunkenness, leaving behind only an uncomfortable tension. And yet, for his sake, even when Julius massaged the side of his head to soothe the ache, Antony had still tried to quietly defend himself.
“I sincerely apologize, Caesar. I only wished to make light of dinner tonight–”
“And you may do so on your own time when I allow it.” Another silence fell, this time staying for the rest of dinner. But even as the men around her moved on, Brutus couldn’t help but stare at the man from across the table, pleasantly surprised at his defense of her. The senatewoman couldn’t even remember the last time Caesar had said anything when her own colleagues mocked her. And yet today was different.
But just as Brutus thought it was forgettably over, Caesar decided that he had more to say to them all.
“But…I’d appreciate it if special senators remembered their duties correctly now and then…for their own sake.”
Marc Antony’s eyes narrowed back at Brutus’ for a moment, but he refused that night to ever say another word.
_
Every day became the same old thing. Wake up, avoid the husband’s talk of potential time together, get dressed by Lucilia, walk to the Roman Forum, be at the daily Senate meeting, go home, eat dinner with him, race to bed, repeat. The cycle became more and more tiring over the years, leaving an empty hole in the pit of Brutus’ stomach from the moment she wakes up to the moment she falls back asleep. And yet all of Caesar’s backhanded compliments and signs of careful disappointment followed her like a shadow.
“Don’t you see that the ‘great ruler of Rome’ only sees you as a pathetic pet?” Brutus had remembered her brother-in-law once admitting to her. “It is just as he sees everyone…idiotic pawns on a chessboard to be thrown off once he’s done dallying with them...”
The senatewoman had a hard time trying to prove Cassius wrong that day, as a few hours after he said that to her in private, Caesar had ordered her to pick up fresh grapes for him to eat.
“As if you are a farmer? But you’re not!” He had whispered to her angrily as she went, but did Brutus fulfill the request of the man above? Of course she did. She always did.
Gaius Cassius Longinus stuck out like a sore thumb against the usual Senate like Brutus, but for many different reasons than she could ever imagine. Even before he properly introduced himself at her wedding with her youngest sister’s arm hooked with his as if he were her lifeline, Brutus was already familiar with the strange man who would swarm around the senators and Caesar himself as the daily meetings and laws would be put in place over the years.
And Gaius Julius Caesar never seemed to like Cassius much. This was not a rumor; it was simply something that everyone knew about him, and so did he. When Cassius, before he became a senator himself, would invite himself eagerly to meetings, Caesar would scoff. When Cassius greeted him in his usual charm, Caesar would simply stare back at him blankly and leave. And on Cassius’ repeated request, when Brutus asked Caesar to make her brewing brother-in-law a Roman senator, the older man practically fell over in shock, but because it was Brutus who asked and not Cassius himself, he made the order all the same, and the man became a part of the Roman Senate.
Cassius arguably adored Julius Caesar at first, even if he originally worked against him as Brutus had done. Once Caesar had won all those years ago, the man was so quick to abandon his earlier Republican views for the new ruler of Rome’s pardon. So quick that it was almost comical to see Cassius with a goblet in his hand, completely dismiss and wave off the old Cato the Younger’s complaints on ‘what’s right’ at her wedding a couple of years ago.
Now his old love for Caesar had slowly but surely washed away into seething, growing hatred of him. So much so that he stopped his flattery altogether, stopped his sarcastic jokes to Caesar, and stopped his glamour. The only flattery he gave around nowadays was only to Brutus herself:
“Well, you strive for glory much more than Caesar and any other man in the Senate have done! What makes him a better man when he couldn’t even pick up his own sword?”
“And yet you come from riches beyond anyone has ever seen; it’s almost comical how you let yourself be subjected to such objectification when you should be surrounded by as much gold as Caesar is! By the Gods, Brutus, you get sidelined by poor men every day, and you let them!”
And of course, her favorite:
“Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar’? Why should that name be uttered more than yours?”
Looking back on the memories, Brutus couldn’t help but wonder how she never figured out what was behind all his flattery and comparisons earlier. To everyone around him, even her own sister, it was most certainly obvious. No wonder why Porcius would get so upset when he was around; perhaps the ugly truth was just too much to handle for her.
But behind all of Cassius’ manipulation, pleas for rebellion, and such, it always seemed to have some truth to them. And Julius Caesar wasn’t particularly making his case any greater; in fact, he was only getting worse as time went on.
Next thing Brutus knew, the man started critiquing her posture as if it truly mattered in the grand scheme of things. Then it was how she walked, how she talked, right down to the scrolls she held under her arm and the messy handwriting of hers that Brutus hid inside. Caesar would call her out at important feasts, Senate meetings, in and out of work. It did not matter, and to Brutus, it became as if he was trying to test her… or just make things all the harder.
And as the years passed, the more unbearable Caesar became to just about anybody, poor or rich. His focus slowly but surely drifted from wars and wills to feasts and festivals. Next thing the Romans knew, Caesar started walking out of the Palatine with some ‘glorious’ laurel of golden leaves to hide his receding hairline and those…hideous outfits of his! With his trailing toga fringes and loosely belted tunics, he made a complete mockery of the Republic. It’d be beyond laughable, if not downright terrifying, what he was trying to do for Rome, and yet the majority still worshiped him like a god.
But the senators didn’t find Caesar’s new personality amusing in the least. Cinna had stopped talking to him almost immediately because of it, Casca grew visibly more irritated that he was forced to step out from Caesar’s private events, Trebonius disappeared altogether, and Decimus, even in his pure devotion to the Imperator of Rome, would tell the same stories he did with a much more stricter tone of voice, and a tightness in his grip that gave way to the very same feeling everyone was slowly starting to feel when it came to ‘Great Caesar’.
Even Brutus felt it, especially Brutus. At times, it seemed like she would be both Caesar’s greatest victim and his most loyal pet.
_
“Look at this! Even Brutus, cursed by her sex, is but the most noble of men amongst you snobs...” Caesar snorted at dinner once, his thin hands pressed compactly on her shoulders with a smug smile.
Brutus knew he was much too drunk to know what he was saying, as his usual gravel of a voice was already slurred to its absolute limit, with the other senators around him not paying much attention to his speeches anymore, but it didn’t make her any less inclined to shrink into herself. In one hand, Brutus held her wine in while her other hand clenched into her stola, just hoping that he’d move on to some other man to mock. Gracefully, he eventually did, flicking the other hand of his for Brutus to leave the table.
“Go on and give me another drink, Brute.” He had ordered, slipping the empty goblet of wine into Brutus’ fingers.
She didn’t hear what else Caesar had said in that moment, as her mind was already elsewhere while she hurried out of the room, away from the impending blocks of clay, away from the feast, away from Cassius’ comments, and onward away from Rome.
She must have passed where the nearby drinks were a while ago, but Brutus didn’t particularly care to stop. She didn’t even realize that the empty wine cup had dropped from her hands several minutes ago, and she was sobbing so audibly that she was scared that a simple-minded servant would accidentally hear.
_
It was never what she signed up for, never who she wanted to be. What was supposed to be Brutus’ freedom became yet another trap set by a different man. A different setting. A different Republic.
And unless something was done soon enough, things weren’t ever going to get better.