Murder Most Foul

A Man Knows

An attitude of repentance … is a heart wrenching experience. But for a man … who has killed another … who represented the hopes … of humanity … they can be no consolation. However to examine again … the circumstances of the death … and the personality of the man … is indeed a rare opportunity. It redeems … and brings to light our actions … no matter how detestable … and to help us understand … the quaint nature of life … in its many moods.

I was the inspector … who attended to the murder of Julius Caesar … the Roman Emperor. I received the message … at 12.10 noon … on the 15^th of March 44 ce. I rushed over to the senate building … a crowd had gathered outside … and the praetorian guards were keeping them back. I went up the stairs … and into the corridor leading to the senate assembly. The emperor was lying in a pool of blood … his body lifeless.

We recorded the testimony of the witnesses … and in a short time … identified all the attackers … on the Emperor's person … in a matter … of minutes. All that remained was to round them up before they fled the country. But I had to explain the motive to the court … and for that I needed to speak to some people in particular.

Anthony was beside himself with grief … but wanted to see justice being done. My interview with him was a short one … but I got the one thing I wanted. It was one of those evenings … he was with the emperor and some close friends … when the Emperor had suddenly asked … ' If I was no more good for Rome … what will you have me do?' The others had avoided any answer … and simply expressed shock. He had asked Anthony … and Anthony had replied … ' I'll have you removed.'

“ I had no idea … the Emperor was serious!' Anthony told me.

A year earlier … he had asked Cleopatra … the same question. And she had replied … ' what's good for you is good for Rome.' And what if any was the Emperor's response? … I had asked. She moved her body … with the lithe gait of a cat … and looked me straight in the eye … and said … ' The Emperor always gets what he wants … ' in that silky throaty voice of hers. ' A real man knows what he wants, ' … she had said.

Brutus glared at me … in that murderous look he always had. ' What I did … I did for Rome.' And he was completely uncooperative thereafter. I managed to look up the old man … everybody said … had tried to warn Caesar of the assassination. He lived in the Greek quarter … and the smell of incense sticks was thick in the air … when I located his home. The man himself … was a little between … today and 100 years from today … but I preservered.

He had known Caesar's father … not the birth father … but the father in heaven. And the father had told the old man … that Caesar was doing the father's work … and would soon join him … in heaven. And he pointed out that … what Caesar had done … he had done for the people … and thereafter … the state took over the will … of the administration. It was as if … after an age of learning what is the right thing … one day … it became alive … and killed what stood in its way.

It was like what old Pliny had written … about the course of nature … and the birth of new species that … takes over from the old. I was certain then … that the age of the Emperors … had come to an end. It was the age of man … and it demonstrated what … the ordinary man was capable of. We were going to leave the matters of state and God … in the hands and the willful bias of man … and God it seems … was telling us to look … at another place for our salvation.

I remember riding past the coliseum that evening … in returning from the Greek quarter. I recalled how the gladiators … would die in the arena … to the sounds of the applause from the spectators. It was the gift of civilization … Rome had brought to the world. The huge stone columns … blocked out the evening light … and from the shadows … I could only perceive a dim … view of the way … they stood erect … as they witnessed the life of man. We give unto Caesar … what belongs to Caesar … and to the world … all else.

They did a third sequel … to the ' Planet of the Apes ' recently … and it raised the oft suggestion in me … that someday … we'll move on to another planet in the universe … as a new specie … and leave the planet earth to the apes. And again I found myself saying … ' ridiculous ' … but I'm getting less certain … each time. The prospect that the will of the earth … may rise … to take the place of man someday … is a notion that is quaint. But will it be willing to die and be reborn?

The mind of man grew … on the basis of our severance to the original link with the creation impulse. Thereafter … we stood apart to view it … and to reorder it by the will of our bias. We differ from the anima in many ways … and each of these has striven … to make the experience of man more … and perhaps eventually to be all. I don't see the apes as having done that.