SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy

by John Maddox Roberts

  “Fine rig, Thorius,” I said, winking. “Who is she? Rich man’s wife?”

  He managed to smile, despite what was probably a broken jaw. “Not this time. Bought the litter and the slaves myself.”Then he sagged back into the cushions and was carried away. I noticed other such anomalies. Bestia walked away with a new toga, its hem not merely dyed with the murex purple, but embroidered in the Scythian fashion with interlacing animal and vegetative designs. Granted, he had been promised a curule position, worthy of the toga praetexta when Catilina should come to power, but a purple stripe was all that was necessary. That toga was worth the loot of a medium-sized municipality. These things, I was sure, were the gifts of Catilina, a notably penurious man. Where was he getting the money?

  As we saw them off, Lucius kept a hand on my shoulder, a plain sign that he wished me to remain behind. I was nothing loath, for more than one reason. When they were all departed, we returned to the atrium and were given wine by the slaves. We sipped and sat in silence for a while.

  “Go ahead, Decius Caecilius,” Catilina said after a while. “Ask the questions that have been burning you all evening.”

  “Not just this evening, Lucius,” I said. “But for a long time, at least since the dinner at Sempronia’s house.”

  He sat back in his chair, in that disarming manner he had. “Let me see, what questions might you have? Could it be this: Why is Sergius Catilina involved with this pack of half-baked imbeciles? How does he think that he stands a chance of snatching power when his followers are such trash?” He slid his eyes sideways, arching his brows and fixing me with his gaze. “Confess it. Isn’t that what you were thinking?”

  I knew what a sacrificial ox feels like when the fiamen’s assistant brings the hammer down between its brows. Still, we Metelli have always been quick on our feet.

  “I saw what nonentities they were when I came in, such of them as I had not already dismissed on earlier acquaintance. I take it that you are using them for whatever service they may render.”

  He leaned forward and laced his fingers before him. “Exactly. Decius, you are a man of experience, descended from one of the greatest of the Roman families. You are obviously not going to be taken in by those buffoons we saw tonight. May I be candid with you?”

  I leaned forward likewise. “Please do.”I wondered how many of the others had been offered this heart-to-heart. Had the bearded Valgius been flattered thus, told he was honored above the others by the master’s confidence?

  He leaned back. So did I. “But tell me,” he said. “What is missing? What struck you wrong? I would like to know how perceptive you are.”This is an excellent way for a man to pretend to omniscience in a puzzling situation, causing another to reveal unseen ramifications while giving away nothing himself. I have used it myself on a number of occasions.

  “Lucius,” I said, “nobody does a thing like this without the connivance of highly placed men. Who is it? Who backs you? There are no more than ten men who could be working with us.”Nice bit of phrasing, that, I thought. “Who are they?”

  Catilina smiled smugly. It was the look of a man who is sure of his position. At least, it was the look of a man who wanted to give that impression.

  “There are a good many,” he said, “all of them well fixed, but all of them cautious. You don’t get to be great and rich without being cautious.”He paused for effect. “Lucullus is one of them.”

  I frowned deliberately. “He has retired from public life. He has riches and glory enough already. What has he to gain from an adventure like this?”

  “He hates Pompey. You will find that to be true of all our supporters, Decius. They all hate Pompey and they fear, rightly, that the man wants to make himself king of Rome.”

  This, for once, had great credibility. Pompey had robbed many worthier men of their rightfully won glory. Throughout his career he had specialized in letting others do most of the fighting and then bullying the Senate into giving him their commands so that only his men were in on the kill. The anti-Pompeian faction in the Senate might well contemplate desperate action to forestall a coup by Pompey. Everyone remembered Sulla’s infamous proscription lists.

  “What Lucullus spends on a single banquet could finance a war,” I admitted, “and the moneylenders are always howling for his blood in the Senate and the assemblies.”

  “And there are others,” Catilina went on. “Quintus Hor-tensius Hortalus, for instance. He has the best legal mind of this generation, and will be able to convince everyone that all shall have been done by correct constitutional form. And he is your own father’s patron. He will be looking out for your career, as will I.”

  “I confess these sound far better than the likes of Val-gius and Cethegus. Who else?”

  “Don’t despise those men too readily. Can a general fight a war by himself? No, he must have loyal legionaries and auxilia. He must have expert centurions to provide leadership at the lower levels. Valgius and the other bearded young ones provide the street-level violence. They have nothing to lose.”

  “And are therefore eminently expendable,” I said.

  “Exactly. It’s not a bad way for a young man to start out in politics. Plenty of action and excitement, and none of the tedium of grubbing for votes in the Popular Assemblies, eh? I did much the same work myself, for Sulla.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I admitted.

  “You must learn to think this way, Decius,” he said earnestly. “Aristocratic attitudes are all very well when one thinks only of ruling, but you have to retain the common touch when you are organizing. Even fools and louts have their uses.”

  “I must remember that.”

  “Do. Umbrenus is a failed money-grubber, but he has done excellent service in organizing the Gauls for us. And Bestia will be truly valuable as tribune. Of course, I plan to do the same thing Sulla did when I am Consul: I will put the tribunes firmly back in their place. It was a disgrace giving them the power of veto in the first place.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said. I wanted to urge him back to the original point. “Now, you mentioned that there were others?”

  “Oh yes. There is Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, the praetor, and Caius Julius Caesar.”

  “Caesar? I can well believe he wants to kill off moneylenders and as pontifex maximus he will lend a certain dignity to our revolution, but is he dependable?”

  Catilina shrugged. “He can be depended upon to look out for his own interests. Nobody can sway the Popular Assemblies like Caius Julius. Granted, he’s worthless as a leader of men. His military experience is negligible for a man his age and his priestly office forbids him to see human blood, but you can bet that all the omens will favor us and the gods will be on our side. And, as pontifex maximus, Caesar is in charge of the calendar. He can make the Consul’s year in office much, much longer than the conventional twelve months.”

  “Ahh,” I said, the light dawning. “That will give you plenty of time to make the, shall we say, adjustments necessary.”

  “To include making certain that the next year’s Consuls are the two men of my choice. Now, even with Caesar’s manipulation of the calendar, it may be that I shall require more time to complete my work.”

  “But these Consuls will be your men,” I said, “and on commission of the Senate, the Consuls can name a Dictator.”

  A broad grin split his face. “I knew you were quick, Decius. That is the office worth having! Six months as Dictator and I will reform the state and give Rome a decent government once more. It will be a government of the best men, and you shall be among them. And it will be perfectly legal, according to our ancient constitution. Hortalus will see to that.”

  Rome had not had a Dictator in 139 years. A true dictator, anyway. The dictatorship of Sulla had been unconstitutional. The thought of Catilina with six months of total imperium, answerable for none of his acts when his term of office was done, was chilling. Yet, it was conceivable that there were men in Rome who would rather
see that than a virtual kingship for Pompey. This brought us to the prime question.

  “Lucius, all of this sounds excellent. Your consulship and subsequent dictatorship will be the salvation of Rome. But what of Pompey? Even choosing the best season, when travel for him will be difficult, he could be outside Rome, with his army, within six weeks of learning about our revolution. What then?”

  “It takes no time to raise an army in Italy,” Catilina said. “Sulla’s discharged veterans are everywhere, and there are others. Have no fear on that account. And we have been caching arms all over the peninsula. Even,” he chuckled, “within the Temple of Saturn itself.”

  I let my jaw drop and my eyes go wide. “The Temple of Saturn?”

  “Yes. Can you think of a better place? It is right in the middle of the Forum, where my men, once armed, shall control the center of the city. And they will be in control of the treasury. Our greatest cache is in the house of Cethegus. After arming themselves there, my men will go to seize the city gates.”This was valuable information.

  “Then,” I announced, “my mind is at ease. Oh, one more thing: There are always two Consuls, if we are to follow strict constitutional form. Who is to be your colleague?”

  Now he smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “Let me keep some secrets, eh, Decius? Rest assured that you will have no qualms about my choice.”Now he rose from his chair and stretched. “It seems to have gotten late. You don’t want to be wandering these streets on such a night, Decius. Stay here. We’ve plenty of guest rooms.”

  I rose, feigning more stiffness than I felt, which was still considerable. “I thank you. I may need a few days to recover from the festival.”

  He called for a slave and, after much comradely leave-taking and backslapping, I followed the slave to one of the guest rooms that opened off the peristylium. It had a bed of generous size and a marble table that bore a three-wicked lamp supported by a bronze statuette of a satyr who sported the shameless erection common to those carefree mythical creatures.

  The slave left and I sat on the bed, thinking hard. I knew that I had little time left for thinking. Too much was missing from Catilina’s story, and I had no idea how much to believe of what he had said. I was sure that some of the names he had given me were included only to impress me. Hortalus, for instance. I certainly had no reason to believe in the man’s integrity, but I knew Hortalus was far too intelligent to be mixed up in anything as harebrained as this conspiracy. He was a veteran conspirator himself, and he had always played a cautious role. Caesar? Then, as always, that man was impossible to fathom. Lucullus? This I doubted, but his detestation of Pompey just might have led him into something rash.

  What troubled me most was the one name Catilina had not brought up. Where was Crassus in all this? He coveted Pompey’s military glory. He was the man who was rich enough to raise and pay his own legions. And Catilina was getting money from somewhere, if his lavish gifts to his followers were anything to go by.

  The talk of Sulla’s discharged veterans was nonsense. They hadn’t fought in seventeen years and would be no match for Pompey’s men, fresh from the Asian campaigns. Crassus, though, had veterans spotted in enclaves all over Italy who would make a much more credible fighting force. Plus, he could buy up auxilia from Gaul or Africa as needed. But was he foolish enough to back Catilina?

  There came a scratching at the door curtain and I stopped thinking. The blood left my head and traveled to regions of more immediate utility. I tried to speak but did not even manage to clear my throat. The curtain swept aside and there stood Aurelia, dressed in her flame-colored silken gown. As she entered, I saw that she wore pearls, but I could not tell whether they were part of the huge rope she had worn when I met her, for they disappeared beneath the gown.

  “Decius, that bandage is most becoming. You look like a soldier home from the wars.”

  She held out her hands and I took them, drawing her close. “I think my greatest fear at the festival was that I might be in no condition to be with you tonight,” I said.

  “I knew you would be here,” she whispered. “Didn’t I say you were a hero?” She came into my arms and pressed her lips to mine, her tongue sliding enticingly into my mouth to play with mine. I was not sure of my heroism, but I now shared much in common with that bronze satyr on the table.

  Our lips parted for a moment and with hands suddenly grown clumsy I fumbled with the clasps that fastened her gown at the shoulders. She smiled maliciously and gave me no help, merely running her hands over my body, her smile widening when her fingers found and judged the state of my excitement. Then the gown slithered down her body in that impossibly sensual manner peculiar to pure silk. It paused as if it could not make its way past the rich swell of her breasts and hung for a moment on their hardened tips, then it was past them and slid down the swell of her belly and over the rondure of her hips, down her thighs and calves to pool on the floor around her feet. She stepped back for a moment to let me admire her.

  I had seen the little statues that the Red Sea sailors bring back from India. These depict the handmaidens of the gods, called yakshi. They have huge hemispherical breasts that have no sag like mortal flesh, and waists small enough to span with both hands. Their hips and buttocks are likewise round and everything about them is a supernatural exaggeration of the feminine, yet they are as graceful as gazelles. They are more sensuous than the attendants of Venus and I had always regarded them as mythical, yet now I saw a living yakshi before me.

  The lamplight played on flesh the color of palest amber wine, except for delicate, brown nipples that graced her breasts more beautifully than the finest jewels. She had adopted the fashion among highborn ladies of having her body plucked clean of hair and smoothed with pumice, and I found myself envying her depilator. Below the dimple of her navel the swell of her belly blossomed into a more richly curved mound, divided at its bottom by that vertical cleft which Greek sculptors always modestly omit, but in which the Indian and Etruscan artists take delight.

  I sat on the bed and drew her to me with my hands at her impossibly small waist just above the hips. I tongued her navel and savored her musk, feeling the shivers that rippled her spine. Her hands delicately caressed the back of my head, then began tugging urgently at my clothes. I stood again and began to pull off my tunic, and now she stood back to watch. She still wore her pearls, the amazing rope looping behind her neck and crossing between her breasts to wrap thrice around her waist. It offset her nakedness to an incredibly provocative degree.

  At last my subligaculum fell away and she began to caress me lasciviously, but a frown of concern creased her smooth brow.

  “Decius, you’ve been hurt worse than I thought! How can you bear the pain?” I was covered with cuts and bruises, although the worst of the cuts were bandaged. There was nothing to be done about the long whip-stripe that divided my back diagonally.

  “Pain is the least of my sensations just now,” I assured her.

  “But we must see to it that you suffer as little as possible,” she said. “Let me guide you.”Slowly, we fell back on the wide bed. With incredible delicacy, she arranged our bodies so that I was enveloped by the richness of her flesh while she never pressed against my many sore spots hard enough to cause agony. She used her mouth with a precision I had thought possible only to the hands of an artist. When at last neither of us could stand more delay, she gently pushed my shoulders back against the bolster and sank down upon me as lightly as a cloud, yet with a thick, furry cry that might have been wrenched from the throat of a maenad. Slowly, and then with mounting urgency, she began to ride me as I had ridden the October Horse that morning.

  9

  A SKLEPIODES, YOU MUST LET ME kill you,” I said. The physician looked up from his desk, where he was writing on one of his innumerable medical texts. He was always his own scribe when he worked on his first draft.

  “That is a bit much to ask, even of your physician.”

  “It will only be temporary,” I assured
him.

  “Temporary death, while a relative commonplace in mythology, is seldom met with in the mundane world.”He set down his reed pen and frowned at me. “Just what is it you are suggesting?”

  We were in the Temple of Aesculapius, on the island. The back of the temple was devoted to quarters, libraries and offices for the priests and physicians, along with lecture halls and gardens for growing medicinal plants.

  “It won’t be real at all,” I insisted. “We just have to fake your death. It will only be for a few days.”

  “Never fear, Decius,” he said soothingly. “It is quite common for wounds such as you have recently experienced to cause delirium.”

  “I am not delirious, and I feel excellent, except for being in agony.”

  “Then perhaps some explanation is in order. First, though, I must examine your wounds and re-dress them. Get out of your clothes and one of my servants will remove your bandages.”I complied and Asklepiodes looked me over in great detail. You would have thought he intended to buy me.

  “You are coming along nicely,” he said when he was finished and the slave was renewing the bandages. “There is no sign of infection in the wounds. Your skin and muscle tone are as healthy as ever, although I detect the signs left by venereal labors of some magnitude. It seems you were serious about finishing your strenuous day with a lady.”

  “It was the longest day of my life,” I said, sinking upon a chair, now back in my clothes. “It began with a horse race and then a battle and it ended rapturously with the most beautiful woman in Rome, but in between there was plotting with men of evil intent. Murder, treason and arson were among the subjects discussed.”

  His eyes brightened. “Criminal doings! At last, you become interesting. Tell me all about it.”The man absolutely thrived on skulduggery. I told him most of what I knew and suspected, because it is not wise to withhold information from one’s physician. He nodded and chuckled at every horrible revelation. Well, he was a Greek.