SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy

by John Maddox Roberts

  She yawned again. “They aren’t very bright. From the beginning, my stepfather has been plagued by the incompetence of his supporters. I’ve had to check everything they did to make sure they didn’t bungle it.”

  “Why you?” I asked.

  “I am trusted. They are near my age, and who would question a patrician lady accompanied by a pair of flunkies? Who would even notice who the flunkies were?”

  “Who but I?” I said. “And Valgius is in charge of fire-raising in the city. He is intimately familiar with the Circus Maximus, and everyone knows that it is the most dangerous firetrap in Rome. As I figured it later, he and Thorius had found that great heap of trash and decided that it would be a good place to start their fire. In their usual bungling fashion, they spoke out loud and sound carries in those galleries. Flavius was passing by on his way home and overheard them. He came too close when he tried to hear more, and they caught him.”

  “You have spent all this time reconstructing what might have happened from what you knew?” She sounded annoyed. “You’re a man of strange tastes.”

  “I would have figured it out sooner had I not been so besotted with you, Aurelia.”

  “Oh, Decius,” she said, pleased, patting me intimately.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “the two bearded wonders were at a loss what to do. Since they were merely scouting for arson, they had not come armed for murder. But Valgius is a race fanatic. Like many other superstitious race fans, he carries a charioteer’s knife for luck. Its shape was inappropriate, but in their emergency it had to do and they cut Flavius’s throat with it.”

  “I think this sophistry of yours is a waste of imagination,” she said. “What does all this matter?”

  “It matters to me,” I said. “Were you the one who got them to catch Flavius before he could get away and then to murder him?”

  “Why do you want to know these things?”

  “Don’t worry. I will think no less of you. I know you were involved. Why are you so reluctant to admit it?”

  She squirmed a little and I could almost feel her blush heating my skin like a distant fire. “Well, it was not something—not something I wanted to be associated with.”

  I knew what she meant. It was not the murder. Murder is all too common and Roman citizens are rarely put to death for murder, unless it is done with poison. It was the arson, the one unforgivable crime on the Roman law tables. The citizenry would take terrible vengeance on anyone caught fire-raising. If this were known of her, she could find herself bound to a stake in the arena, soaked with tar and awaiting the executioner’s torch.

  I stroked her back. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”Within minutes she was faintly snoring.

  Indeed, it did not matter. The situation had moved far beyond a few killings. And one way or another justice would be done. Within a matter of days or at most weeks, Catilina and all of his followers would be dead or in exile. The shades of the murdered equites would not haunt the city. Perhaps they would not even haunt my dreams.

  At first light the next morning I walked Aurelia through the awakening streets of Rome. She wore her veils, but no one sought her. I looked around for some sign of change, but there was none. The war had commenced, but Rome was blissfully ignorant of the fact. All that would change soon enough. I wanted Aurelia out of it when it happened.

  She had left her litter and slaves at a friend’s house, and I took her there. We made our goodbyes at the gate of the house, a respectable mansion near the Colline gate.

  “Leave the city, Aurelia,” I said. “Go as far as you can and as quickly as you can.”

  She smiled at me. “Decius, you are too nervous. Within a few days my stepfather will be Consul and I can return.”

  “It will not be as quick or as easy as that,” I promised, “and for a while no member of the family of Catilina will be safe anywhere near Rome.”

  “Well, until then.”She leaned forward and kissed me, as if we were being separated for the afternoon, then she turned and went into the mansion.

  Despondently, I turned and walked toward the Forum. I knew that I would never see her again, unless she were hauled back to Rome in chains, for execution. I prayed that she, at least, would get out of this alive. I had ceased to care about her guilt. I no longer saw innocence anywhere I looked.

  There was an eerie tranquility in Rome for the next two days. The city lay in its usual late-fall somnolence, the inhabitants lazing through the short days, waiting for the return of spring, the Floralia and all the ritual assurances that Proserpina had left the bed of Pluto and returned to the world of mortals. Thus, the news that arrived on the morning of the third day was doubly shocking.

  There is some near-magical process, which I have never fathomed, by which news and rumor reaches every part of Rome simultaneously. When I walked into the Forum in the early morning, there was pandemonium. A half dozen self-appointed orators harangued the citizenry with impromptu speeches delivered from the bases of the various monuments and everyone shouted the latest rumors at one another. Women wailed and tore their garments in terror, although the immediate danger seemed rather slight, and hawkers of charms and amulets were doing an unprecedented business.

  I decided that the Temple of Saturn could do without me for a while and shoved my way through the crowd to the Curia. At the foot of the steps I encountered the Praetor Cosconius, preceded by his lictors.

  “What is this all about?” I asked him.

  He surveyed the mob contemptuously. “You know how crowds are. There have been rebellious uprisings here and there in Italy. A few bandits sack some villas in Bruttium and Etruria and by the time the news reaches Rome you’d think it was old Mithridates come back to life, invading Rome with his whole army. For days Cicero has been warning that Catilina was up to something. This is probably it.”

  All morning long the Senators streamed in, many of them having been summoned from villas near the city. The lictors and heralds restored order in the Forum while the Senate debated. I forced my way into the Curia, but it was so packed that I had to stand on an urn at the very back of the chamber to see or hear anything. Reports from various parts of Italy were read out by heralds. From the younger Senators there were shouts for action.

  Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, despite his semiretirement, was still Princeps of the Senate and thus had the right to speak first. In his matchlessly beautiful voice, he protested that his distance from affairs of state made him unfit to speak on this matter, but that in recognition of the emergency, the usual protocol should be by-passed and the Consul should be allowed to address the Senate first. This, I was sure, had been arranged beforehand between them. They had been bitter political rivals, but with lawyerly objectivity they could cooperate closely on important matters. Cicero stood from his sella curulis and all was silent.

  I will not reproduce here his speech, which was the first of the three anti-Catilinarian speeches that are now among the most famous speeches since Demosthenes denounced Philip of Macedon to the Athenians. In later years Cicero wrote these speeches down (with embellishments), and published them. Now they are studied by every schoolboy and emulated by every would-be lawyer wherever Rome holds sway, which is the whole civilized world, these days.

  Catilina was there, and he tried to brazen it out, proclaiming his innocence and protesting the malicious machinations of his enemies.

  But Catilina was never the orator Cicero was, and he had few friends in the Senate. He began to rage, and the Senators jeered at him and demanded that he resign and leave Rome. The whole plot was not out yet, but there was enough known that Catilina had become like a diseased dog, snarling in the midst of a pack that has turned on him. I do not use the image without reason, for many of the men in the Senate were as bad as Catilina, or worse. He was just bolder than most.

  At last, hurling curses and imprecations, Catilina stormed out, shouting something about “bringing it all down on your heads” or something of the sort. I heard many v
ersions of his parting words. I do not think anyone heard him clearly.

  When he was gone, Cicero, for reasons that seemed best to him, probably oratorical ones, waited for calm to return to the Senate chamber. It also gave Catilina time to get away, a calculated move on Cicero’s part, I think. When he rose to speak, he held high a piece of papyrus that looked familiar to me.

  Amid the stunned silence, he explained what it was, and how it had come into his hands. He cleared the Allob-rogian envoys of wrongdoing and explained the role of Fabius Sanga. It restored the shaken spirit of the Senate to hear the ancient name of Fabius mentioned as a preserver of the state. Then he began to read the names. Shouts of rage and indignation greeted the recital of each name. Then I heard my own name read out. The men to either side of me stepped away as if I had some rare new disease. With unutterable relief I heard Cicero’s next words:

  “The Quaestor Decius Caecilius Metellus attended the meetings of the conspirators with my knowledge. He acted under authority granted him by the Praetor Metellus Celer. He is innocent of any wrongdoing.”Now the men to either side took my sweaty hand and clapped me on the back. Then I was instantly forgotten as the speech continued. When Bes-tia’s name was read out my cousin Nepos stood.

  “The tribune-elect Bestia was never a part of the conspiracy!” he shouted. “He acted on behalf of General Pom-pey to ferret out this plot to endanger Rome and put the empire under the yoke of tyranny.”

  Cicero’s face went scarlet, but his voice dripped with the sort of sarcasm only Cicero could muster. “How convenient. And since when has our esteemed and illustrious General Pompey had the authority to assign spies within the city of Rome? The last time I consulted the tables of the law, a proconsul wields imperium only within the borders of his assigned province. Is this some new interpretation of the Sibylline Books I have not been informed of?” It was no use. Pompey was just too popular, especially among the commons, who had little respect for the legal niceties. Bestia would be safe. I was galled by the knowledge. I wondered which of the equites he had killed to retain credibility with the conspirators. I determined to look into it, when all this was over.

  And it would not be over for some time. Before the Senate session was done, Catilina and his followers were declared public enemies. This was only the beginning. Lamps were brought in as the daylight dimmed and messengers ran to and fro. Senators sent their slaves to their homes or to the taverns and stalls of the food sellers. They ate standing, on the steps of the Curia, talking among themselves in small groups.

  State scribes scribbled frantically as commands were authorized, drafted and sent out. Mobilization orders flew about like so many birds. Magistrates were appointed to arrest the conspirators wherever they might be found. We junior magistrates were given orders to organize night watches to guard against arson. At last, we thought, something to do!

  The next day, a number of the conspirators were apprehended. In this day of the First Citizen, with his reorganization of the vigiles into a true, and very efficient, police force, it may be wondered that so many public enemies moved about at will during a state of emergency, and that Catilina and a number of his followers escaped from the city without difficulty.

  The fact was that Rome in those days had no police, and no mechanism for apprehending and incarcerating large numbers of felons. Ordinarily, when an arrest order was handed down, a praetor or curule aedile, accompanied by lictors, would approach the subject and summon him to court. The actual arrest was carried out by the lictors, using an ancient formula. If there was resistance, the magistrate would call upon any citizens nearby to aid him and they would haul the arrestee to court by force, if need be. This procedure was clearly inadequate when dealing with the conspirators.

  At first, there was support for Catilina, especially among the ruined and the destitute. You will earn few enemies in Rome by attacking moneylenders and promising to cancel debts. For a while, Catilina’s thugs roamed freely, made streetcorner speeches, and in general made life precarious for anyone in public office or belonging to a distinguished family.

  The tide began to turn irrevocably against them on the third day after Catilina’s flight, when all the stories about planned arson came out and several fire-raisers were caught in the act. After that, there was no sympathy for the Catili-narians in Rome, and a good deal of summary justice instead.

  During this time, I was kept too busy to brood over Catilina or Aurelia. I organized a band of vigiles and we patrolled the streets during the hours of darkness, carrying torches and lanterns, occasionally running into other such bands, and avoiding brawls by shouting out watchwords at one another. Occasionally we encountered drunken bands of Catilina’s supporters and then we brawled in earnest. It was deadly serious, but everyone seemed to enjoy it immensely. In years to come we were to get a bellyful of such activity, but at the time it was a welcome relief after the boring years of peace and prosperity.

  The young equites, remembering their military tradition, armed themselves and formed self-appointed guard units around the homes of magistrates and distinguished men, foiling any planned assassination attempts. Seeing all of this half-organized, half-military activity, Cicero gave in to the inevitable and on the afternoon of the day following Catilina’s flight the chief herald ascended the Rostra. For the first time since the sacrifice of the October Horse, his huge voice boomed through the Forum.

  “OFF WITH THE TOGA AND ON WITH THE SAGUM!” At this a tremendous cheer erupted. This was another of those ancient formulae, and its meaning was that the Roman people, as a whole, were under military discipline. All citizens were to take off the garment of peace and assume the red cloak of war. It was the last time this formula was ever to be used in Rome.

  And so I clattered importantly about in my red cloak and hobnailed caligae, although I did not wear sword or armor within the pomerium. With my old retainer Burrus acting as centurion, I commanded a light century of fifty vigiles and had all the fun of soldiering without having to leave the city and live in a leaky tent. My father and his formidable pack of retainers guarded the Ostian Gate, and he grumbled because he wasn’t given one of the field commands.

  During this time, I had one moment of great satisfaction. Under rigorous questioning, a captured Catilinarian revealed that word had reached the city that full-scale arson was to begin. That night, with a half score of my men, I waited in hiding outside the Circus Maximus until I saw two shadowy figures dash beneath the arcades. I waited a few minutes longer, then signaled my men to dash into the tunnel where 1 knew we would find them. We had slung our caligae around our necks and ran barefoot to make no sound. We covered our lanterns with our cloaks and were like ghosts as we crossed the pave.

  Within the tunnel, I whipped my cloak from my lantern and others did the same. The sudden light revealed the white, bearded and terrified faces of Valgius and Thorius. The two were crouched over a smoking, low-flaming fire at the base of the great trash heap.

  “Quintus Valgius and Marcus Thorius,” I shouted as one of my men doused the fire with a bucket of water, “in the name of the Senate and People of Rome, I arrest you! Come with me to the praetor.”I had hoped they would resist, but they broke down in tears and supplications. Disgusted, I turned to my centurion.

  “Burrus, don’t let the men kill them. They must be tried.”

  “Damned shame, that,” the gray old soldier grumbled. “My boy’s with the Tenth in Gaul, and these traitors want to stir up trouble there, getting the barbarians to murder Romans in their sleep.”

  “Nevertheless,” I said, “they are citizens and must be tried first.”

  Burrus brightened. “Well, they ought to make a good public show, anyway, perhaps something with leopards.”As we walked to the basilica where arrestees were being kept, the vigiles argued over the best way to put the fire-raisers to death. Every groan of terror from the bearded ones came to my ears as the songs of Orpheus.

  But amid all of this exhilaration, there was a darker side. C
atilina had joined Manlius in the area of Picenum, and he had gathered a credible military force, mostly Sullan veterans and other discontented soldiers left over from various wars, along with people from the municipia and a surprising number of wellborn young men who left Rome to join him, scenting an opportunity for quick advancement.

  Darkest of all were certain events in Rome. I have mentioned the lack of provision for arresting numbers of felons. There was a similar problem when it came to putting highborn men or holders of high office into custody. In the past, when serious perfidy was detected in such a person, he was given opportunity to slink from the city in disgrace and go into exile. This was different. Men who planned the violent overthrow of the state could not be allowed to leave and join their leader. The highest of the conspirators were delivered to the praetors, who kept them under guard in their own homes.

  Since Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura was a praetor himself, Cicero personally arrested him and led him by the hand to the Temple of Concord, where he and the other leaders were to be tried. There Cicero argued that the leaders of the insurrection should be put to death immediately. There were some who protested that the Senate had no authority to try citizens, and that this could only be done by a duly constituted court. Cicero argued that the state of emergency forbade this, and that the sooner they were killed, the sooner the rebellion would collapse.

  Caesar rose and spoke forcefully against any such course of action. He said that it ill-befitted Roman statesmen to act in the heat of passion. These were excellent sentiments, but they caused word to spread that he was involved with the conspiracy, or was at least a sympathizer. He was threatened by the mob as he left the temple.

  Cato, naturally enough, called for execution. That was just the sort of action that appealed to him: simple, brutal and direct. Many men, especially Cato himself, believed that because he led an upright life of virtue and austerity, he must be right. In any case he spoke eloquently, and it may have been his speech that swayed the Senate to its final decision. Before sunset on that day, Lentulus, Cethegus and several others were taken to the prison beneath the Capitol and there were strangled by the public executioner. Richly as they deserved this fate, these executions were not constitutional and when the excitement and hysteria were over, people understood that they had set a fearsome precedent. Then men who had called for the blood of the conspirators called as loudly for Cicero’s exile.