SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy

by John Maddox Roberts

  There were others, but the rest were not from Rome. They were minor nobles from various Italian municipia and coloniae. I no longer remember their names, although they are to be found in the court records. I remembered what Milo had said about malcontents. It gave me cause to reassess the fairly rosy picture I had of the empire’s condition. In truth, only the city of Rome itself was relatively tranquil. Everywhere else there was discontent and unrest.

  Amid the backslapping and embracing, Catilina’s brows went up at a faint clink from under my tunic. I displayed my weapons for their admiration.

  “I wasn’t taking any chances on encountering Clodius this evening,” I told them. Several of them grinned and exposed the grips of daggers or short swords beneath their tunics.

  “You won’t find anyone here who’s squeamish about carrying arms,” Catilina chuckled. “But you needn’t have bothered yourself about Clodius. He’s safe at home, being nursed by his beloved sister and complaining piteously of his wounds. He says that only serpents are in the habit of biting men on the heel.”

  “Hence your new name around town,” Cethegus said, “Metellus the Viper.”

  “I like the sound of that,” I said.

  “I heard one of his sycophants at the baths this evening,” said Laeca, toadying it up superbly. “He was declaiming some new verse he’d cobbled together, likening Clodius to Achilles, wounded in the heel by a coward.”He laughed loudly and falsely. “As if the man who carried the head of the October Horse from the Forum to the Subura single-handed could be accused of cowardice!”

  “You’ll be the talk of Rome for some time to come, Decius,” Catilina said.

  “And forgotten next time I stand for office,” I said, remembering my role.

  “But then, that’s why we’re all here,” Catilina said. “We are all fed up with the fickleness of the electorate. They were spoiled by the Gracchi and have been growing worse ever since.”He paused while the others made grumbles of agreement. “Now, I would never want to see us return to monarchy, but things were best when decisions were made by the Senate and the Centuriate Assembly, all solid men of property and military experience, patrician and plebeian both. Now they hand out citizenship to anyone, even freedmen.”Then he remembered the non-Romans present and added, hastily, “And on top of that, our demagogues have robbed the mun-icipia and coloniae of their old rights of self-government without giving them a commensurate place in the government.”That was the sort of mistake Caesar never would have made. Catilina just wasn’t a born politician.

  “Very true,” said one of the strangers. “We Italian allies supposedly have citizenship, but we must come here to Rome for the voting if we want to be represented. We crowd into tents and tenements at a miserable time of year.”The man was glowering, his words bitter. “Then, as often as not, we are cheated of our vote. Whenever an issue that might favor us comes up for a vote, the speakers carry on endlessly, or the augurs suddenly see omens decreeing that the vote must be delayed. Then they wait until we must return home before voting.”This was indeed a common abuse of the day, and the allies had much just cause for grievance.

  I put on a stern face. “Such injustice is intolerable!”

  “And we will see it corrected,” Catilina said. “Gentlemen, take your seats and let us get down to business.”

  We seated ourselves and slaves came in to set a table with pitchers of wine and platters of fruit, nuts, olives and the like. This was not a dinner party, but Romans cannot talk seriously without refreshment save in the Senate and the courts, and there we are just pretending to be dignified. The slaves withdrew. Like most such homes, this one had no internal doors in that part of the house, so we could see into the peristylium and the adjoining rooms and be sure that no one was lurking in them.

  “Orestilla has locked the domestic slaves in the rear of the house,” Catilina said. “We may all speak openly, without fear of being overheard.”He looked around the room with the eagle-eyed gaze of a general proudly surveying a veteran legion. “I will make no speeches. The time for that is past and the time for action is at hand. Let us hear your reports. Publius Umbrenus, let us hear yours first.”

  Umbrenus rose as if addressing the Senate, his left hand going up as if to grasp that fold of the toga just below the collarbone that is so beloved by orators. Remembering that he was not wearing his toga, he grasped a handful of tunic instead.

  “My agents in Gaul have been successful and the tribes will rise upon our signal. Roman government in the Transalpine Province is weak. When Lucius Murena came back to Rome to stand for the consulship, he left his brother Caius to rule in his stead as legatus. To Gauls, that’s like a king leaving his idiot son in charge while he goes raiding in someone else’s territory. It is an invitation to rebellion.

  “My negotiations here in Rome with the envoys of the Allobroges have been most successful. Their support consolidates our grasp on the northern part of the province. They were hesitant at first, but when I demonstrated to them the extent of our preparations, our power, our backers, then they were eager to cooperate. They stand in readiness to receive our orders.”

  “Excellent,” Catilina said. “Marcus Fulvius, speak to us.”

  Nobilior stood. He was a thin, nervous man who was of some kinship to Fulvia, the mistress of Curius. “My preparations in Bruttium are now complete,” he reported. “When you give the signal, Consul”—he addressed this title to Catilina—”they will rise. You may be assured of the complete loyalty and support of the Bruttians.”

  I solemnly raised my cup and took a long drink in order to avoid bursting into laughter. If ever there was an assurance of disaster, it was to have the Bruttians on your side. They succumbed to every enemy of Rome who ever marched against us from the south. They harbored Pyrrhus and they harbored Hannibal and even Spartacus tarried there for a while, since the Bruttians weren’t up to fighting a pack of runaway slaves. They weren’t even proper Latins, speaking as much Greek and Oscan as Latin. In truth, nobody knew exactly what they were, and nobody cared. Nobilior sat.

  “Lucius Calpurnius?” Catilina said. Bestia stood. That year he had been elected one of the tribunes of the plebs for the coming year. Since Sulla, the lowest of the tribunes had little more authority than a low-ranking quaestor like me. About all that was left to them was the power to summon the plebs to vote on a proposed law and submit the decision to the Senate for ratification.

  “Unlike you men of action”—Bestia smiled around at his listeners—”I have had little part in the preparations for this epoch-making revolution, which will return men of birth and nobility to their rightful place.”His words were the proper ones for a gathering like this, but something seemed wrong about him. Despite his raggedness, there was a steely resolve in his stance. Beneath his words and behind his eyes I saw a sort of mockery, as if he were amused by all this.

  “My time will come after you have all sprung to arms,” Bestia went on. “When the uprising is in full roar throughout Italy, from the tip of Bruttium to Cisalpine Gaul, and in Transalpine Gaul, when our new Consul is at the head of his army and marching upon Rome, then, as Tribune-elect, I shall call upon the people to rise up and oust the usurper Cicero. With me at their head, they will throw open the gates and welcome our new Consul to his curule chair in the Curia.”

  “Decius Caecilius,” Catilina said, “you seem skeptical.”Apparently, I had not been guarding my expression.

  “Cicero is contemptible,” I said, “but what of his colleague, Caius Antonius?”

  “He will already be out of Rome,” Catilina said. “He is so anxious to get to Macedonia and start looting that Cicero is all but threatening him with arrest to make him stay in Rome long enough to make a show of finishing his year in office.”Catilina leaned back in his seat and laughed richly. The others quickly joined him. “He’ll be summoned back to Rome, of course, but by that time we will be firmly in control, and he’ll have no more luck than his brother Marcus had in Crete.”He nodded toward Val
gius. “Quintus, of our two youngest colleagues, you seem to be marginally better able to speak this evening. Tell us how you have fared among the laureled youth of Rome.”

  Valgius rubbed his bearded jaw ruefully. “If that flunky of Clodius’s had kicked a little harder, I’d not be speaking until next Saturnalia. Marcus and I”—he nodded toward the bandaged Thorius—”have been untiring in our work among the young men of senatorial families. All of those who have spurned our Consul in the past, those who have sought to prosecute him and those who are sure to resist us when the uprising begins, have been marked out. Their sons will kill them in their beds as soon as they hear the trumpets sound.”

  Catilina caught my expression. “Oh, don’t worry, De-cius. We won’t make you kill old Cut-Nose. He’s never offended me and he’ll come around as soon as he sees how the wind is blowing.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said to cover my confusion. “We have our differences, but things between us haven’t deteriorated to that point yet.”

  “But then,” said Cethegus, “you really must kill someone, Decius.”

  “I must?”

  “Oh, but of course.”Cethegus’s tone was as sarcastic and insinuating as ever. “All of us have.”

  “It’s a sort of initiation,” Laeca said. “Rather like joining one of the mystery cults. Each of us proves his sincerity and loyalty to our cause by killing someone.”

  “You have to admit it’s an effective and unquestionable display of solidarity.”Still with that hint of inner amusement.

  “I see. Anyone in particular?” I inquired.

  “That’s the easy and agreeable part,” Catilina said. “You recall that once before, several of us discussed how we were all but ruined by the moneylenders?”

  “I recall it,” I said.

  “Well, then, there you are. What can be more pleasant than to kill a creditor? You mentioned that you have had to borrow heavily to support your current office and against your future aedileship. To whom are you so deeply in debt?” He sat back, smiling.

  I lifted my cup and drank slowly, frowning into the depths of the excellent Massic. It swirled red as blood in the lamplight reflected from the silver bottom. I was pretending to be pondering my answer. Actually, I was frantically trying to find a way out of this. If I couldn’t come up with a credible answer, I might not walk from this place alive. Actually, it was almost pleasant not to have Aurelia on my mind.

  Then inspiration struck. It was one of those moments of blinding insight that are sometimes granted by our guardian genii. Of course, there are philosophers who insist that each of us has two genii, one good and one evil, and it was from the latter that I had most of my near-suicidal inspirations, but they all seemed brilliant at the time. In any case, I was in no position to discriminate. I lowered my cup.

  “Asklepiodes, the Greek physician,” I said.

  Everyone looked puzzled. “The doctor to the gladiators?” Curius said.

  “Do you think that’s all he is?” I said. “That’s just for surgery. For medicine, he doctors the rich, like all Greek physicians. Why, people come from as far away as Antioch and Alexandria for his treatment.”I looked around at them, as if we were all men of the world and understood these things. “Discreetly, of course. He specializes in those conditions people prefer not to talk about. Lisas the Egyptian alone keeps him on a retainer of a million sesterces a year just to treat him for those diseases he’s always picking up from his incessant perversions.”

  “I never would have guessed it,” Umbrenus said.

  “And,” I said, leaning forward and speaking conspira-torially, an excellent way to speak in such a gathering, “do you think that being physician and surgeon to the gladiators is not a way to grow rich?” I paused and drank, letting the implications sink in. “He knows who is in top form and who isn’t. And who better than their own physician to make sure that a champion isn’t quite up to his next fight? That’s the time to make the long-odds bets, my friends. And he doesn’t give that information away, he sells it, or passes it along in return for favors.”

  “So that’s why you win so often at the fights,” Bestia said.

  “It seems almost a shame to waste a resource like that,” Laeca added.

  “But I’m up to here in debt to the wretched Greekling,” I said, raising a hand level with my bandaged scalp. “He only gives me tips in hope that I’ll be able to pay him back a little of what I owe him.”

  “Yes,” Catilina said, “let’s not cheat Decius Caecilius out of his just revenge. A true Roman shouldn’t bet on the munera anyway. They are supposed to be funeral games, after all. Races are the proper contests for gambling.”He turned to me and smiled. “Very well, it’s settled then. Decius, you can kill Asklepiodes. But we have little time, so you must act soon—within two days. Is that agreeable?”

  “Oh, decidedly,” I assured him. “The sooner the better.”

  “Excellent. Now, Valgius, what about the fires?”

  “Our teams have been assigned their sites,” said the bearded one. “On the appointed night, the fires will begin all over the city. The authorities will have a busy time of it, I assure you all.”

  He resumed his seat and I drank, deeply this time. It was far worse than I had thought. Thus far, they had plotted treason, murder and parricide, serious crimes but not exactly uncommon. This was arson. Fire-raising was the most hated and feared crime in Roman law. Arsonists taken in the act had reason to envy men who were merely crucified.

  And yet, horrible as it all was, I had difficulty in crediting any of what I was hearing. I knew with certainty that these men had committed murder, I had seen the evidence. But revolution? This was like boys playing at war, naming themselves general, each pretending to be a cohort or century. Surely, this pack of strutting posers and babbling loons could not possibly hope to overthrow the majesty of the Roman government? And yet I had witnessed the effectiveness of some of their acts. It left me with one conviction: there was somebody else behind all this, somebody who was not about to appear personally before these lunatics.

  I had questions to ask, but I wanted to ask them of Catilina, not these madmen. He was not without his own strain of insanity, but most of the great men of that day were mad to some extent or other. He was far more intelligent than the others, I was sure, although I had my suspicions about Bestia. But I was sure that Catilina was not going to risk everything with only the support of such as these.

  A few others tendered their reports, each of them as vaporous and self-deceiving as the others. It was like a dream, except that I knew they were shedding real blood in their ramblings, the blood of citizens.

  And I have never taken kindly to the murder of citizens, nor even of resident foreigners under Rome’s protection. Some of the victims may not have been particularly savory, but others had been upright members of the community. At any rate, people who do not die in the natural course of things have a right to die by their own hand, or else be put to death only after the proper deliberations of state. That is why we have crosses and arenas. They should not die violently at the hands of malefactors and I have never been able to tolerate such criminal behavior.

  If ambitious men wanted to kill one another in the pursuit of power, they had my full blessing to do so. Every such demise made the world a better place. But in doing so they had no right to kill ordinary citizens guilty of no more than going about their everyday lives. If their armies wished to follow their generals and slaughter one another in furthering the ambitions of those men, I was satisfied. I yield to none in my admiration of the Roman legionary, but soldiers are men who bear arms, kill and die as a profession. That does not constitute a right to victimize those who merely go about their lawful occupations.

  The truth was that I was not a man of greatness as that age, which now seems almost as remote as the days of Homer, judged such things. I had no ambition to lead armies, to conquer new provinces, to come home a triumphator. I was a Roman in the old sense of the word. I was a
citizen of a hill town on the Tiber that had, through an astonishing set of circumstances, found itself to be master of the world. I wanted to live with my neighbors, govern over them as my birth and education gave me competence, and, when necessity dictated, fight in their defense to the extent that my less than heroic capabilities allowed.

  I enjoyed parties at the Egyptian embassy where the mighty of the world gorged and connived, but I also enjoyed the celebrations of Subura workmen where a whole guild had to pool their dues to buy an amphora of decent Falernian and the loaves were the only white bread those men ate all year. The corner temple of Jupiter near my house, where I attended sacrifices on most mornings, had only five priests. One of these was free-born, two were freedmen and two were slaves. That was the Rome I loved, not the imperial fantasy that the likes of Crassus and Pompey and so many others fought over. It was men like these who had destroyed the old Rome. Now Catilina wanted to be one of them.

  And yet, for all his foolishness and brutality, I could not help liking Catilina, in a grudging sort of way. He was like an importunate puppy, or a rambunctious boy who insists upon barging in on the debates and solemnities of his elders, waving his wooden sword and shouting his shrill battle cries, annoying everybody and impossible to ignore. He had hubris in plenty, as the Greeks define such things, but he had little meanness and even less pretentiousness. I sincerely hoped that, after all his murders and treasons, he would be given a quick, easy and dignified death.

  The drinking went on for some time after the serious talk was over. We walked out into the street and made our farewells as personal slaves were released from the rear of the house to accompany their masters home. Thorius, bandaged head and all, crawled into a litter borne by a matched team of Nubians, which I assumed must be borrowed. Since he had come by his wounds in my ostensible defense, I felt it incumbent upon me to be solicitous.