Marcus said, “It may be true that Catilina has never been publicly indicted and convicted of a crime. Nevertheless, we know he is a criminal.”
“You have no proof of what you are saying,” said Crassus. “You do not know that Catilina’s immense following is composed mainly, or solely, of criminals. Were this so, do you think he would now be Praetor, that we would endure it or recommend it?”
“Yes,” said Marcus, looking directly at him. “I do think so.”
Crassus’ thin face whitened with rage, and his lower teeth showed above his lip. “You are insolent, arrogant, and defiant of authority!” he exclaimed. “You are Curule Aedile, and as a public officer you are answerable to me. Do you wish me to relieve you of your duties?”
But Marcus was too aroused and too agitated to heed the threat. He said, “You accuse me of insolence, arrogance, and defiance of authority. Are your charges not misplaced, lord? Are you mistaking me for Catilina?”
Crassus slowly and deliberately drank from his goblet; his gaze dwelled inimically on the lawyer. It was Julius Caesar who replied to him in a tone of affectionate indulgence.
“For a man who has lately given his friends the impression of lassitude and listlessness and resignation, Marcus, and for a man who has been heard to say, ‘For what purpose have we been born?’ you are displaying an astonishing store of passion and frenetic energy and loud protest. Is it possible you now believe there is a purpose in our existence—”
“Yes!” cried Marcus. “I was a fool. I have been wallowing in complacency and security, and these lead to death and disintegration. I had been so absorbed in public duties and in private practice of law that I lost sight of what is transpiring in my country. I plead guilty to the crime of indifference, and am determined to make amends.”
He turned to Crassus again. “My country is worth more to me than safety, riches, fame, acclamation, honors. Therefore, I protest Catilina. Do you realize that I shall encounter him in the courts and that, because he hates me he will be prejudiced even against the justice of the cases? At every turn he will thwart what is just, what obviously should be redressed, if I have any involvement in it.”
“I doubt it,” said Julius. “After all, there is the opinion of the people to be considered, and the people love you. Catilina would not dare to defy established law and to rule against you through malice.” He bowed to Crassus. “May I confide a secret to our embattled Marcus, lord? Yes.” He smiled at Marcus. “We have already warned Catilina that he must not, when encountering you in the courts, give a judgment which violates law and dignity and reason.”
Some mysterious exchange had occurred between Crassus and Julius, and Crassus’ tone was almost mild when he said to Marcus, “Catilina’s term is but for two years. Who knows but what you, Cicero, shall succeed him?”
They wish to silence me, thought Marcus, but I will not be silenced.
He said, “During the short time Catilina has been a Praetor he has already violated the Constitution three times in his rulings. Two condemned traitors have been freed by him on a technicality, though their guilt was thoroughly and justly established. A notorious murderer for profit, who employed numerous assassins, has been freed by Catilina on the technicality that the authorities who seized him kept him in confinement five hours beyond the time permitted by law, in order to question him. Technically, that is true, but they needed the extra time to force one single admission from him which would enable them to bring him before a court. This is not triviality! This is violation of eternal justice.”
Julius bent over some papers. “I have here, dear Marcus, notices of cases you have defended on that same technicality. Is there one law for you and one for Catilina?”
Marcus colored. “But the men were innocent! Catilina’s criminals were not.”
“No one can judge a man’s innocence or guilt until he is before a court. It is true, sweet friend, that technicalities can sometimes free men who are guilty. But those same technicalities operate, mainly, in behalf of those unjustly seized and accused. As it was observed centuries ago and in other nations, the law is a blunt instrument. Nevertheless, it protects the innocent.”
“It will not be so with Catilina.”
Julius laughed lightly. “Catilina is too indolent by nature to be overly active in any court or any case. In short, he has received a public honor and a public salary, though he will rarely appear in any court or go to the labor of studying any case.”
“Then, why was he made Praetor? Is our Treasury not depleted enough that we must support rascals with public tax moneys?”
They did not answer him, but only smiled faintly.
Marcus looked from one silent face to the other, and his mind raced. He said with bitterness, “Then it is true that you owe him something, and anyone who owes Catilina anything is guilty of a crime against his country.”
Crassus no longer smiled. “Enough,” he said. “What! Are you, a mere lawyer, a mere Curule Aedile, to fling insults and accusations of treason in my face, I who am triumvir of Rome? Beware, Cicero. I have long endured you because of Caesar’s love for you. I suggest that you do not bring yourself to my attention any longer.” His face was swollen with blood and rage and hate, and his clenched and narrow fist lifted itself from the table.
Marcus stood away from the table. For a moment or two he had trembled with terror at his own audacity. He thought of his parents, his wife, his beloved daughter. Then his anger rose against himself, that he should put his own life and the lives of his family before the safety and honor and justice of his country.
“Then, lord,” he said, “you admit that Catilina’s position is your responsibility?”
Crassus half-rose in his jeweled chair and raised his fist as if to strike Marcus. But Julius, now terribly alarmed, seized his arm and almost thrust him back in his chair again. Pompey sat upright and he too gazed at Crassus with consternation.
“Rash fool,” said Julius to Marcus. “I never thought to see you so debased by your own words. A man does not fling accusations of malfeasance into the face of the highest officer in the country—”
“Why not, if it is true?”
“Gods!” cried Caesar. “Are you a complete idiot?”
“Is this not a free country?” asked Marcus. “Are not the highest officers answerable to those who entrusted them with that office?”
Julius looked at Crassus, who had subsided slightly. Then Julius said in a flat voice, “No. Not any longer, Cicero. Your beloved democracy has altered the customs of Rome.”
“I speak not of democracy, Caesar. I speak of the Republic of Rome. There is a gulf between democracy and republicanism that can never be bridged except at the ruin of republics. Who has overthrown our Republic and has declared her no longer in existence? I have seen no such overthrow; I have heard no such declaration. Therefore, the Republic remains, and under the freedom of the Republic I have a right to demand an account of public officers when they have betrayed the trust of the people and have suborned the Constitution.”
They stared at him, and every face was pale and one was malignant.
“Do not order my murder, though assassination is one of the weapons of democracies,” said Marcus, with a bitter smile. “I have too much influence in Rome, and too many powerful friends, and I am of the Helvii and my wife is of a great family also. You may believe that Romans no longer care who rules them and are not disturbed by assassinations no matter how heinous. They need but a voice. I shall be that voice, or, if I am murdered, I shall raise other voices.”
“You forget,” said Pompey in a peculiar tone, “that it is possible for any government, or any influential men, to turn the wrath of a people on whomever they desire, if they wish to protect the guilty. If you should be assassinated, it would be very easy for—powerful men—to declare that you had really been a traitor, and the people, who desire no upheavals in their lives and no confrontations with truth—for they are indolent by nature—will gratefully accept the explanat
ion in order that they be not disturbed or made to think.”
“You accuse the Roman people then, of madness?”
“No,” said Pompey, with that peculiar tone again, “only of pusillanimity.”
Marcus’ wrath rose again; then he looked at Pompey acutely and thought, I never knew him. He saw that Julius and Crassus were regarding Pompey with some disfavor. Then the two men looked into each other’s eyes and a question was asked and then answered. So Julius smiled charmingly on Marcus and said in the voice of one confiding to another:
“We wish to tell you the truth, Marcus. Accept it or not. It remains the truth.”
“When did you ever speak truth, Julius?”
“Nevertheless,” said Crassus in so firm and sharp a voice that Marcus turned to him quickly and knew that he would speak openly at last, “it will be the truth, and you will ignore it at the peril of Rome. Speak, Caesar.”
Julius clasped his thin dark hands on the table and looked steadfastly at Marcus.
“You know some of the power of Catilina, whom we despise but whom we dare not ignore. We have spoken of freedmen, slaves and petty criminals who are his followers. In themselves, they are not too dangerous. But they are not the sole supporters of our patrician friend. There are ambitious men who are his familiars, Piso and Curius to name only two. He also has many Senators and tribunes in his pay, or their secret crimes are known to him. Besides these, there are the tens of thousands of athletes in Rome, and men of unutterable but powerful evil who make their living on vice. There are the malcontents, and do not underestimate them, for they are legion! There are men, multitudes of them, who are not Romans, but who are rich. Their loyalty is not to Rome, but to their own service. There are men who make treason their profession, for they hate Rome and the symbol which is Rome, and desire despotism.
“Among these of the disaffected is the great patrician class, who despise the Republic, and who wish to rule an enslaved nation. These have multitudes of clients who would obey their masters, who would obey Catilina, who is one of them.
“There are the gutter rabble, obsessed with greed and the gratification of their bellies and their lusts. What is Rome to them, and Rome’s solvency? They would betray her for a free pot of beans, or two tickets to the circus. Then there are the motley creatures of hideous, depraved appetites, and actors and songsters and dancers, who love to shriek in the wake of patrician and royal authority for the light that falls on them. There are the homosexuals and other perverts who writhe with joy at the thought of exploitation and whips, and the promise of legal protection.
“These are the followers of Catilina, Marcus. These are the ones who at his word would destroy our nation.”*
“It is true,” said Pompey.
Marcus had known this before. But he had not known the awful immensity of it, its pervasiveness, its invasion of and integration with the body politic.
“Would you have us massacre a third of the city?” asked Crassus in a terrible voice. “Or, which is more probable, a half?”
“How would you justify it, in the name of the Republic?” asked Julius.
“Shall manliness be regained by murder?” asked Pompey. “Shall we descend to the level of the mob in order to free Rome from it?”
“Sulla attempted to restore the Republic,” said Crassus. “That was in an earlier day, before the rabble was so powerful. He was defeated, and left the field.”
Marcus fell into a chair and dropped his chin on his breast. There was a long silence, which was finally broken by Julius who said, “It was to placate Catilina, who controls what we so greatly fear, that he was appointed Praetor. It is a small price to pay for Rome.”
“It is blackmail,” said Marcus in a dull tone.
“True,” said Caesar. “If the blackmailer acts alone, he can be destroyed. But if he has many, many friends then he must be endured, his ravenous appetite satisfied at intervals. In short,” added Julius with a whimsical glance at Marcus, “we must compromise, even on principle.”
“What if he demands to be Consul of the City?”
“I have told you: he has been warned that he will receive no more than this he has received.”
Marcus was quiet for a while, thinking, while the other three men exchanged cautious but ironical glances. Then Marcus said, “It must be possible to rid ourselves of enemies. As slowly as the Republic declined, so as slowly and deliberately must she be restored. We already have laws—”
“It was Sulla who first showed you the impossibilities of enforcing the laws we already have, the improbability that any class in Rome would rise selflessly in her behalf. To whom will you turn, Marcus, in the name of Rome?”
Marcus lifted his heavy eyes to Julius’ face. “Not to you, Caesar, not to you.”
Pompey said in his low, calm voice, “We must deal with reality and not with hopeful phantoms. Our grandfathers knew that the Republic was declining, even in their youth. Could they have prevented it then? It is possible. It remains that they did not. We have inherited the fruit of their indifference, their selfishness, their lack of pride and virtue and patriotism.”
“It has been true of all nations, that they came to this,” said Julius. He lifted his hand then let it drop on the table. “The causes lie in man’s nature, itself. If I were to found a new nation I should make it a benevolent despotism, and not a Republic which inevitably declines and becomes depraved.”
“The man on horseback,” said Marcus.
“True. He alone has been able to survive longer than any Republic survived. And his nation with him. Republics are founded on the fantasy that men are capable of self-government and restraint and self-discipline and heroic virtue. But it is only a dream, and is false, and must die in the dawn of reality, the reality of what a man really is and not what he should be.”
Marcus stood up slowly. He looked from one to the other. “My reason tells me that you speak the truth. Nevertheless, my spirit insists that I fight that truth, that I do what I can to make man more than he is.
“Long before our own time the customs of our ancestors molded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears. Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its form and outlines. For what remains to us nowadays, of the ancient ways on which the commonwealth, we were told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected but quite forgot. And what am I to say of you? Our customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and we are called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause. Through our vices, rather than from fate, we retain the word ‘Republic’ long after we have lost the reality.”*
He spread out his hands mutely, then added, “I, too, am guilty. I stand before you guilty men a guilty man, myself. I have no defense except that, at least, I have tried, if to no avail.”
He turned to go, then added to the three silent men who were regarding him with strange expressions, “Do not let Catilina cross my path. I have a vendetta with him. Some day we shall meet and that day shall be of my own choosing, and not his.”
His pale face had lost all its native amiability and humor. He left the room and the marble floor echoed with his steps. They heard the closing of the distant bronze door. Then Julius lifted a pear from a silver dish and polished it on his sleeve, and bit into it with an expression of pleasure.
Crassus said, “Our noble white façade has cracked. We need it no longer. Let it fall.”
“Assassination?” asked Julius, wiping his lips with a linen napkin. “No. We need him more than ever. I have already heard rumblings about Catilina. They could become thunder. Let Cicero die and that thunder will surely be upon us. I have told many, ‘Would Catilina be Praetor if Cicero had objected severely?’ I think Cicero wi
ll be silent. We have convinced him that oratory will be of no use—nor will it.”
“If any assassination is planned,” said Pompey, “I recommend Catilina as the victim.”
But Julius laughed and shook his head. “Do you think he has not already provided for such a contingency? If we move against him, however subtly, he will bring down the roof on all of us, even if he dies as a result. You underestimate the power of those he has enchanted. Men will die eagerly for such as Catilina.”
Crassus said with vicious anger, “We stand between a man of virtue and a man of evil, and by the gods I do not know which is the more dangerous.”
When Marcus returned home that night, full of gloom and dread and sorrow and quiet rage, he was disagreeably surprised to find Terentia waiting for him in the hall. He said to her at once, “I am weary. It is late. I am in no mood for discussion.”
“I have waited hours for your return,” said Terentia, stubbornly. “I must know what you have done against the seducer and murderer of my sister.”
Marcus walked past her abruptly into his bedroom, but she followed, her brown eyes hard and determined. Marcus turned to her and said in a stifled voice, “I could do nothing. It is too late. It is too late for Rome.”
Terentia blinked at him. It came to Marcus, as it came too often in these days, that she was a stupid woman, for she could never grasp the whole of a statement but only its parts. She said, “What has Rome to do with the removal of Catilina from office?”
“Everything,” he said. “He is Praetor because of what has happened to Rome.”
“Then you failed, Marcus.” Her eyes were taunting and full of contempt.
“I failed when I was born. My father failed, and his father before him. My grandfather’s father was guilty of Catilina.”
“You speak in riddles, my husband. So Catilina remains because you are impotent and have no power to enforce his removal.”
A Pillar of Iron Page 64
