SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy

by John Maddox Roberts

  “Do you know why Cato drinks so much while he rails against all other forms of indulgence?” Catilina asked.

  “Why is that?” I tore into a roast kid that had been part of the Argo’s crew just moments before. The ship made its stately way along the table as the slaves reduced its crew at each place.

  “It’s because it hurts so much the next morning.”We both found this extremely funny and laughed immoderately. Catilina could be good company when he put himself out, and he was putting himself out that evening.

  “Someday, Decius,” he said, pouring a bit of wine on the ground in token of a vow, “I’ll be able to give a banquet like this.”

  “The way Pompey’s going,” I said, “there won’t be anybody left to triumph over.”

  “There will always be plenty of enemies,” he assured me. “At least men like Pompey and Lucullus have earned their places of honor. What is Rome coming to when a jumped-up lawyer reaches the highest position over men who have given their lives in service to the state? Men who are of the highest birth?” That was more like Catilina. He was a patrician and, like most such, thought his birth entitled him to office. Then he changed direction again.

  “Ah, don’t listen to me. I can talk like that every day. This is an occasion for rejoicing. Hard to believe, isn’t it, old Mithridates dead, I mean? He was causing us grief back in the consulship of Claudius and Perperna, back when Sulla was still propraetor in Cilicia.”He took on a nostalgic look as the next course was served; lark’s tongues in caper sauce, as I recall. Catilina had been one of Sulla’s more bloodthirsty supporters during the proscriptions and had done well out of them. He had good cause to be nostalgic, for the newer generation of politicians, men like Cato and Caesar, were pushing for prosecution of Sulla’s executioners as his old supporters faded from power.

  Thinking of this, I looked around to see where Caius Julius might be. He and his brother Lucius were not in office that year, but they had been given a praetorian appointment under a bill introduced by the Tribune Labienus to try the eques and financier Rabirius for the murder, almost forty years before, of the Tribune Saturninus. Considering what the times had been like, this was rather like prosecuting a gladiator for his victories, so the obsolete charge of perduellio had to be brought against the old man, relating to the semi-sacred status of the Tribunes of the Plebs. Oddly, his son later became a fervent supporter of Caesar, but then, sons and fathers often do not agree, I have noticed.

  Finally, I spotted Caius Julius at another table, keeping company with that gaggle of Allobroges. This struck me as odd, because I never knew Caius Julius to socialize with anybody unless he had a political motive, and those longhaired barbarians certainly had no votes in the assemblies. All I could imagine was that he had arrived late and that was the only place left.

  Trained slaves appeared, white-robed and carrying lyres, their brows wreathed with laurel leaves. These began to stroll among the tables, declaiming Homer and the odes of Pindar. This was a signal for the first break in the banquet. Most of us pushed heavily to our feet, put on our sandals and staggered off to let some of our intake settle. There was a public bathhouse next to the garden, and this was being kept open, manned and luxuriously equipped for the whole night.

  The light of hundreds of lamps shimmered off the agitated water as I entered. 1 put off my admiration until later, for I had more urgent business to transact and made a straight line for the privy. That facility had more than a hundred seats, but there was still some jostling, as a few of the feasters had to be helped onto their seats by slaves. Elsewhere, others, even more overcome by their overindulgence, vomited in prolonged, roaring convulsions. I ignored these with a superior air. I was proud of my absorptive capacities in those days.

  Intensely relieved, I reentered the main room, which in this house contained a swimming pool in which a number of the younger guests disported themselves. Respectable women did not mingle promiscuously with men at the public baths, but there were a few decidedly nonrespectable women circulating, some of them quite highborn. I recognized at least two senator’s wives and the sister of a pontifex. As I made my way toward the steam bath, a feminine voice hailed me. I looked to see who it was but the crowd had grown dense.

  “‘Down here, in the water.”I walked to the lip of the pool and knelt by a damp, brown-locked head. It was my cousin Caecilia who, since all of my female cousins are named Caecilia, we called Felicia, not because she was happy but for her catlike looks and temperament. She was the daughter of that Creticus who waited outside the walls of Rome, and had recently wed Marcus Crassus, eldest son of the ex-Consul who had defeated Spartacus.

  “This is naughty for a lady so recently married in so respectable a ceremony,” I chided.

  She rested her chin on crossed forearms and kicked her pretty feet in the water. “Don’t be silly. I was married off because our family and the Crassi wanted to mend fences after being at odds for so long and with Pompey coming back soon. I am just a knucklebone on the great game board of politics.”

  “Knucklebones are hard and knobby, which scarcely describes you, cousin. Where is your fortunate husband, by the way?”

  “Snoring on the couch, when I left him. I have no intention of missing any part of an occasion like this, so I came here to refresh myself. Why don’t you join me?”

  I stood. “Some other time, Felicia. Dignity of office, and so forth.”

  “Quaestor?” she snorted. “That’s not an office, it’s a sentence!”

  I winced at her cruel but accurate assessment of my place in the scheme of things, and took my leave. In the exercise yard, a troupe of gladiators were going through a series of mock duels, using blunted weapons but wearing their most splendid armor. I passed their clash and clatter and found the steam room. There I gave my clothes and wreaths to an attendant, took a pile of towels and went into the muggy heat. In the dimness, I found a bench and sat. In moments, I was sweating like a legionary at the end of a long day.

  Anyone seriously dedicated to the joys of feasting knows that it is essential to take an occasional break and purge oneself of the more heroic excesses. I fully intended to see the sun come up on this one. Even here, though, Lucullus had seen to our comfort. In the center of the steam room was a huge basin in which pitchers of wine sat packed in snow hauled down from the Alps in wagons.

  An extraordinarily handsome young man came in, followed by a group of youths of similar age. He was about nineteen, with black, curly hair and a smile that would have shamed Apollo. He squinted through the steam, then walked up to me and held out his hand.

  “The Quaestor Metellus?” he asked.

  “The same. And you are … ?”

  “Marcus Antonius.”I had thought the family look was familiar.

  “The Consul’s son?” I asked. A companion handed him a cup of the chilled wine.

  “His nephew. My father is the elder Marcus.”He sat next to me, while his friends, whom he clearly dominated, found places for themselves. “Your father presided as augur at my manhood ceremony a few years ago.”

  “Then this must be your first triumphal banquet,” I said. “There hasn’t been one since Afranius and Calpurnianus celebrated theirs seven years ago.”

  “I’ve heard those were nothing like this one.”His eyes gleamed with youthful enthusiasm. “Lucullus knows how to throw a banquet.”

  I agreed that this was so. His father, the elder Marcus Antonius, had been an incompetent and a criminal even by Antonine standards. Sent out to destroy the Mediterranean pirates, he had instead gone plundering in the provinces. He attacked Crete on the pretext that they were allied with the pirates. On that island he had accomplished the truly extraordinary feat of being utterly defeated by the Cretans. He was nicknamed Creticus in derision and had died in Greece, unmourned, about ten years before this memorable banquet. One had to pity this splendid young man his paternity.

  “Do you know what I love about the baths?” he said. “They’re the only places in Rome
where you can go and be sure of never running into any Gauls.”His friends laughed loudly at this, although he laughed even louder. He had a fine, infectious laugh that made his weakest witticisms seem brilliant.

  “Do you mean those Allobroges over there at the banquet?” I asked.

  “Who else? They’ve been calling on my uncle nearly every morning. That means I have to endure them when I make my morning calls.”Men that young think that all of life’s vexations are aimed solely at them.

  “It could have been Germans,” I said consolingly. Then one of the youths challenged him to a wrestling match and they all ran out to the exercise yard. A plunge into the cold pool almost completely cleared my head. After being vigorously toweled and pummeled by the attendants, I felt ready to face the next few courses of the banquet.

  On the street outside the bath, a great crowd of citizens had gathered. Facing the garden, they chanted praises and congratulations to the triumphator. Some of the chants were so ancient that nobody knew what the words meant. I was about to push my way into the crowd when I saw a single, lonely figure standing on the pedestal of a statue of Flora that stood in an alcove between the public bath and the new Temple of Minerva. The man was strangely erect and dignified, and even in the gloom of the alcove he seemed familiar. Curious, I walked over to the pedestal and looked up.

  “Consul?” I said.

  Cicero looked down. “Is that Decius Metellus? Come up and join me.”

  Mystified, I went behind the statue where there were steps to mount the pedestal. It was almost four months past the Floralia, but the statue of the goddess had been freshly draped with flowers in honor of the occasion. The smell was almost overpowering.

  Gripping a fold of the goddess’s gown to steady myself, I rounded the statue and found Cicero gazing upward. He was very still, and did not seem at all like his usual, public self.

  “Here, out of the torchlight,” he said, “it is a good night for observing the stars. I spend a part of every night in contemplating the stars.”

  “My father taught me to take the auguries,” I said, “but except for the falling sort, those don’t take great account of the stars. I’m afraid he considers stargazing to be Oriental mummery.”

  “Many Romans think that, but they are wrong. I have studied writings from Egypt and Persia, the Greeks, even the wild Druids agree that the stars exert great influence on us. Especially that one.”He pointed and it was plain which one he meant. It was by far the brightest and the reddest, hanging like a brilliant drop of blood amid the jewellike points of white.

  “Even I know that one,” I said. “Sirius, the Dog Star, Canicula, the little dog, and a few other names. Patron of these very days, the dog days of late summer.”

  “What you say is what everyone knows. But why do we fear that one? What makes it a star of evil reputation?”

  “I thought it was because the dog days are the time of pestilence and the beginning of the season of storms.”This seemed an odd subject to be discussing at such a festive time.

  “That is true, but there is more. At the festival of this gentle goddess”—he patted the knee of the statue—”at the Floralia, we sacrifice red dogs to appease that star. We do the same at the Robigalia when we honor her male counterpart. Why do we do that?”

  I shrugged, longing for some more of that Caecuban wine. “These are very ancient deities,” I said. “We perform a good many rituals we no longer understand.”

  “That is true. It is also true that never in living memory has Sirius been as red as it has been this summer.”

  In the distance, faint over the chanting of the crowd, we heard the heralds proclaim the resumption of the feast. With great relief I descended and helped Cicero down. He did not need help because he was feeble. He was only forty-three at the time, astoundingly young for a Consul. He needed aid because of the awkwardness of his formal toga, which was so white that he almost glowed in the darkness of the alcove.

  As we made our way through the crowd, I thought about what he had said. Even more than most people, Romans live by signs and portents. I know of no other people who maintain two separate priesthoods to interpret omens. We take no public and few private actions without consulting the auguries and the haruspices. When all else fails, we will consult the Sibylline Books, for which we maintain a college of fifteen men who are empowered to look into them in times of national danger. Besides these more serious matters, the people of Roine, from Consuls to slaves, are mad for omens, which they will find in every imaginable place and circumstance.

  Birds, lightning, storms, odd things falling from the sky, monstrous births, all are noticed, remarked upon and interpreted to signify something or other, from the loss of one’s lover to a military disaster overseas. When these natural phenomena are not enough, fabricated omens must suffice. Statues speak or turn their heads, nanny goats give birth to lion cubs, gods appear to shepherds on hillsides, voices come from the sea, dead snakes prophesy from within golden eggs—the list is endless.

  And yet, in all my life I had never encountered definite evidence that any of this was true. Any time I have spoken of this, I have been told that it is churlish to expect anything so mundane as evidence or proof in matters of this sort. A few philosophers have told me that certain of the Greeks had a belief that one arrived at the truth by examining evidence and drawing conclusions therefrom, but these had never gained much of a following. Even so, I have always been impelled to look into things, to examine evidence and find the truth. To snoop, as my father used to say when he was displeased with me. It got me into a great deal of trouble, and it was about to again, soon after this memorable night.

  Back at my place at the long table, I saw that the servers had brought out a concoction that was meant to depict the sea monster Scylla reaching for the ship of Ulysses. After some consultation with Catilina and the diner to my other side, a quaestor named Vatinius, who was in charge of preventing precious metals from leaving Italy, we decided that it was made of lampreys boiled in squid ink. I decided to restrain myself and wait until the next course. I have never been hungry enough to enjoy lampreys, in or out of ink.

  It was not a long wait. To my great delight, the next course consisted of African gazelle, grilled over charcoal made from the thorn wood of its native land (the server assured us of this). The nautical reference in this case was an obscure one, concerning a Babylonian god or perhaps goddess. I have never been able to make much sense of the eastern mythologies, nor ever seen much sense in attempting to. Whatever the divine connection may have been, the meat was delectable. Catilina spoke with great authority on the subject of this animal, its habits and the best ways to cook and eat it, claiming to have learned these things as Propraetor in Africa three years before. We were pleasantly, tipsily engaged in discussing this creature and how best to devour it when I saw Catilina turn pale beneath his red complexion, his eyes turning to agate. I followed the direction of his alarming gaze and saw, weaving among the tables, servers and entertainers, none other than Publius Clodius.

  He hadn’t always been Clodius, naturally. He had started out as Publius Claudius Pulcher, scion of one of the noblest of the patrician families. But he had chosen to throw in his political lot with the populares, and so had decided to use the plebian form of his family name.

  “He must be incredibly drunk to show his face here,” I noted. As Lucullus’s legate in Asia, Clodius had stirred up a mutiny among the general’s own legionaries. Then he deserted and joined the army of Marcius Rex, who waited outside the walls along with Creticus.

  “Who knows?” said Vatinius. “He might have been invited. He’s the tdumpkator’s brother-in-law, after all. And another sister is married to the Praetor Metellus Celer. 1 hear Celer’s wife is calling herself Clodia now, like her brother.”

  “Another knucklebone,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Vatinius asked.

  I was distracted by Catilina, whose face had gone positively insane with rage. His hand went into hi
s toga and beneath his tunic, closing around something that seemed suspiciously like a dagger hilt. I twisted around and gripped his wrist firmly.

  “You can’t do that here!” I hissed. “Every priest and magistrate in Rome is here tonight! It’s sacrilege to carry arms within the pomerium and murder is frowned upon! Keep that thing hidden and calm yourself, Lucius.”Gradually, his face calmed and his eyes cleared. He snatched up his cup and emptied it in one long swallow, then held it out for more.

  “I’ve longed to kill that sewer rat for ten years. Since he came back to Rome, he’s gone nowhere in public without his gang of bravos.”His voice shook, but he had it under control. “It seems a shame to lose the opportunity, but I thank you, Decius. It would have been impolitic.”

  “Think nothing of it,” I said. “We’ve all wanted to kill Clodius from time to time. He’s even set his men to kill me, in the past. Just politics.”With Catilina, it was understandably more personal. Ten years before, Clodius had accused him of an illicit affair with the Vestal Fabia. The two had been cleared of all charges and there had been deadly hatred between Clodius and Catilina ever since.

  Vatinius, who had carefully taken no notice of the little drama, now distracted us by violently shoving away a dish that a server had placed before him, his face twisted with disgust. I looked to see what it was: wild hare cooked with broad beans.

  “Anyone who can bear to look at boiled lampreys ought to be able to face hare and beans,” I said.

  “Beans are unclean food,” he informed me. “Eating them is contrary to the teachings of Pythagoras.”

  “I didn’t know you were a Pythagorean,” I said. There were few things that interested me less than the teachings of Pythagoras, or any other philosopher, for that matter, but it was a safe subject.

  By the time gray streaks appeared in the eastern sky, I knew that I would never want to eat again and I had heard all I wanted to hear about the teachings of Pythagoras. Before departing, each of us was given a guest-gift. Mine was a massive gold ring set with a garnet, smoothed and ready for the jeweler to engrave my seal. Like everyone else, I had brought along my largest napkin to carry away leftovers for my slaves. Some of these napkins were the size of a boy’s toga and we looked like a pack of drunken legionaries leaving a sacked town with our booty on our backs.