A Pillar of Iron

by Taylor Caldwell

  “Farewell.”

  He left the Senate with dignity. But when he was in his litter a sensation of unreality came to him, which is the cloak that despair wears. He could feel nothing. When he entered his great and beautiful house he looked about him, incredulously. No! It was not possible! All that he had built, all that to which he had devoted his life, all his prayers and hopes and dreams and patriotism had not come to this! That he must leave his beloved country and stay at least four hundred miles from Rome—which interdicted his ancestral island as his future home—could not as yet impress itself on his stunned mind.

  He fled to his library and shut the door and bolted it, and found himself panting as if he were a hare that had been hunted by wolves and had just escaped. But when among his wonderful books he saw that he had not escaped at all. They could not protect him with all the wisdom that lay within them. This teak and ivory chair could not throw its arms about him. These walls could not shelter him. The lovely trees he had planted so lovingly years ago could not bend their boughs to hide him, nor could the grottoes conceal him. The grass could not cover him with its green carpet, nor the fountains blot out the formation of his face so that his enemies could not come upon him. What he had considered a fortress against misfortune and malice was no fortress at the last. It was a vulnerable mass of masonry, thin of wall, unlocked of door, shattered of window. For an exile was doomed to have his property seized, sold by the State, or razed infamously, as a warning to others.

  Terror struck him. Where should he go? What of his fortune in the banks? His jewels, his treasures, the precious accumulations of the years? He was an outlaw. Anyone from this day forward who sheltered him, hid him, protected him, within four hundred miles of Rome, was automatically outlawed also.

  He looked through his window onto the winding gardens he had so tenderly designed. It was radiant May, and he had planted those roses himself, rejoicing in the warmth of the earth on his hands and on his feet. That noble fountain: he had imported it from Greece at a great price. The trees laced their emerald boughs lovingly together, sheltering the bright green of the grass and patterning it with dancing fretwork. The walls burst with blossoming color. Birds sang deliriously to the approaching evening. The sky was opaline, and the west was the heart of a rose. Cypresses communed with God gravely and lifted their spires of majestic darkness; the leaves of the myrtle trees fluttered. The sweetest wind brought fragrance to him. And beyond his land he could hear the beat and mutter and clangor of his hilled city, the thunderous voices of his countrymen.

  He had an alternative to exile. He could find his sword and fall upon it. But, he had a family. He clutched the hair of his temples in his mute despair. He sank down upon a couch and pressed his hands over his face. He thought of his dear island, where the ashes of his ancestors lay, and the ashes of his grandfather, his father and his mother. He fell into a stupor of such profound grief that darkness covered his eyes and he lost all sense of time. When he emerged the shadows of late evening already engulfed his library, and the sky outside his window was a deep lilac.

  He became aware of a thunderous knocking at his door, and he also became aware that he had been hearing it even in his stupor. He dropped his hands between his knees and stared lifelessly before him. Then he heard the cries of his wife, his daughter, and his brother. He tried to call out to them to leave him in peace, but as no sound came he forced himself to his numbed feet and staggered to the door and unbolted it.

  He saw their three pale faces, and their tears, and he turned away and stumbled back to his chair and fell into it, unspeaking. Terentia cried, “Oh, woe is this day! But you would not heed me; you would not listen to me! You would not exercise prudence; you would not seek the support of powerful men! No! You were all wisdom, all rectitude, omniscient, proud, assured of your own might! And you have brought disgrace and ruin upon your family.” She burst into furious sobs and groans and wrung her large and ungainly hands and gazed at her husband with rage and misery.

  But Quintus came to stand beside him and put his hand on his shoulder. Tullia fell on her knees before him and embraced him and kissed his icy cheek. “I shall go with you, dear Father, no matter where you go, and shall delight to be with you to the end of my life.” She kissed his hands, and then in an access of sorrow and love she kissed his feet also. He placed his hand on her bowed head and spoke to his wife.

  “You must not go with me, Terentia.”

  She ceased her lamentations abruptly, and her wet eyes gleamed in the dusk, and her teeth bit her pallid underlip as her thoughts scrambled through her mind, planning, ordering themselves, speaking of expediency.

  “This house is forfeit,” said Cicero, “and all I have, my villas, my farms, my money. But what you have inherited, Terentia, and what I have given you over the years, remains yours. All is not lost. In the morning I will take with me what I can carry, and leave—” He could not continue. His voice had been low and husky, as if a dagger had pierced his throat. Tullia embraced his knees.

  “Our son must remain with me,” said Terentia in a thoughtful and considering tone.

  Quintus burst out in a breaking voice, “O, that I could accompany you! But I should be accused of deserting my post, my legion. I am a soldier.”

  Marcus patted his hand. “That is understood. I have been condemned as a shame to my country, a violator of the Constitution. To go with me would be to have treason adjudged against you. Tullia, remain with your husband and your mother, who will work with your uncle for my recall, for surely I still have friends in Rome!”

  “Ask me not to leave you, Father, nor to refrain from departing with you!” the girl implored.

  He embraced her and kissed her cheek. “Beloved child, what you ask is not possible. Your duty is to your husband, before your father. Do not forget me. Inspire Piso to help me. It is all you can do.”

  *Recorded by Sallust.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Subtle thoughts did not come easily to the mind behind Quintus’ brightly colored face and burly mien. But as he grimly watched the demolition of his brother’s great house on the Palatine he thought, Why is it that when a man is destroyed a government desires to destroy his house also? Is it because that government wishes, in its overwhelming malice, to obliterate the dreams that live therein, and the hopes and the dear memories and the echoes of a just man? Truly, as Marcus has often said, the government is the enemy of men!

  He went to Caesar and said, “You professed always to love my brother, and he had a loving affection for you which you have betrayed. He was your mentor, your defender, when you were children together. He wears the amulet your mother gave him, when he protected you. It saved his life. But you, O Caesar, have ruined that life! You have driven him into exile, for you are a man without valor and love only schemings and other vile things.”

  Julius looked at the soldier mildly and replied, “Quintus, you speak as a rough warrior. I sought to save Marcus, to have him by my side. But he repudiated me. He would not understand that in these fierce and rapid days of Rome the slow movement of the representatives of the people, the tribunes, was not enough to meet the needs of modern times. He is of the old days, the simple days, when the Constitution was enough, and law was law, and morality was in the people. But now, in our rushing society, in the growing grandeur of Rome, and her power, and her leadership of the world, the ponderous machinery of the representatives of the people is a hindrance to the new impatience which demands that a government must act speedily and decisively in the enormous face of events. This Marcus could not understand.”

  “He understood too perfectly,” said Quintus. “You have said I am a rough soldier. It is true. I see singly. I know good from evil, and light from darkness. I see that you have destroyed my brother because he stood in your way. It is in your power to recall him from exile. It was in his power at one time to command your death; he withheld his hand. That was a woeful day! But be grateful that you live.”

  Julius smiled. “
I, too, am a soldier, Quintus. Is not Pompey, your general, one of us? I endure your remarks because I love you, out of old memories and friendships. I tell you this: I have not forgotten Marcus. I weep for him.”

  “Weep for yourself,” said Quintus, and tightened his sword. “Return my brother to his country.”

  He went to Pompey in the latter’s ascetic house, and saluted and said, “My general, it is in your power to recall my brother from exile. It is said that you love him. Once he hinted that he owed much to you. Let him owe more!”

  Pompey looked at him sternly and said, “He was obdurate. The Senate banished him, for he had broken the law he was sworn to uphold. It is a quibbling, and that you and I know only too well, my captain. But there it is.”

  “You are my general, and I am your captain, and we are both soldiers. Let us beware of governments, for they are our enemies, and use us as blind weapons and sell us to death when they will, and present medals to our wives and invoke us as heroes. They leave our children fatherless and give them only the banner which covered us on our pyres. Nevertheless, they fear us. Let them fear us more! My general, do not think that subtle Caesar nor that wily Crassus will stand with you when it is needful. They endure you only to use you.”

  Pompey frowned and pondered, slowly shaking his head. He answered at last, “What you say is quite true. I trust neither Crassus nor Caesar. But your brother was imprudent. The affectionate letters he wrote to Antonius are now public property. You and I know they were written in sincerity and without knowledge that Antonius had become an extortioner in Macedonia. Nevertheless, the people of Rome are now convinced—through the kindly offices of Caesar and Crassus, the patricians and the Senate—that your brother was guilty.”

  Quintus said bitterly, “The guilty extortioner, Antonius Hybrida, lives again in Rome and is again honored by his fellow patricians. But my innocent brother lives in exile and his house is razed and he is dishonored by the very nation he served! My general, let us stand together as soldiers and recall the man who saved our country, and return to him that which was taken from him.”

  Pompey’s large face was disturbed. He plucked at his chin. “Marcus,” he said, “publicly expressed his apprehension of the military. Therefore, the military does not love him. But he has not forgiven us. However, do not think, my captain, that I have forgotten Marcus. A soldier honors an honest man, even when he is a lawyer.” Pompey smiled a little. “Honor and honesty are the marks of the soldier, and we revere them even in civilians. Let me think a while.”

  Quintus gathered his legionnaires about him and visited the Antonius Hybrida in a cloud of thunder and dust. He was admitted to the presence of Antonius, who bowed to him formally and said in an uncertain voice, “Greetings, Quintus Tullius Cicero. I was about to invite you to visit me. What is it that I can do for a great soldier of my country?”

  Quintus regarded him with hate, but kept his voice under control. “Your letters helped the Senate to destroy my brother, your guilty letters, Antonius Hybrida, your lying letters. Yet, once you saved my brother’s life! What ambiguity is this? I am only a soldier, and a soldier is not a liar and subtle, and so I do not understand. Enlighten me.”

  Antonius lifted his eyes and looked into those of Quintus and he saw the blue and amber rage in them, and the distrust and revulsion. He quailed in himself and flushed.

  “My letters, though they were imprudent—imprudent—did not serve to ruin your brother, Quintus. And I swear to you that I meant him no harm! It was the Senate’s decision that your brother’s methods against Catilina were unlawful, for all that they were swayed by them. And there was a letter which Cicero wrote to his publisher, Atticus, regarding the jury which tried Publius Clodius, and in which he called a Roman jury ‘scum.’ Alas, that that letter fell into the hands of an unscrupulous freedman of Atticus!”

  “Quibbling!” cried Quintus, and his large teeth were like the teeth of a wolf. “Pompey has declared it so, Pompey, member of the Triumvirate, and a soldier!”

  Antonius quailed again at the mention of that formidable name.

  Quintus said, trying to swallow the huge lump of hatred and anger in his throat, “Be a man, Antonius Hybrida, and not a weak patrician. Go to the Senate and confess that your letters were false, and plead for the return of my brother to his country, and the restoration of his honor.”

  Antonius wound his slender hands together in distress. “It would not help,” he said, almost inaudibly. “They were determined to destroy him, and so was Caesar and Crassus. Look upon me!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Do you think I rejoice in my own part in that destruction?”

  “Then declare to the Roman people, themselves, that you were a liar!”

  Antonius looked at him in affright. “They would laugh at me! I would be dishonored for all time!”

  Quintus’ jaw clenched. He said, “You live at ease, because of your robberies. But my brother pines in Salonika, and his fortune has been confiscated, his name dishonored, his house razed. Yet, you fear the laughter of Roman mobs and would let my brother die in exile to keep that laughter from your precious person! Hear me, Antonius. I am a soldier, a captain of my general, Pompey the Magnus. Perhaps the day of the military is not so distant. When that day arrives—I will remember you, Antonius Hybrida.”

  He laid his hand on his sword. Antonius’ wretched face trembled. But he said with dignity, “I am ashamed that this visit was necessary for you, Quintus Tullius Cicero. You will not believe me, but I am not an evil man. I have been a coward, and ingenuous. Once I even believed Catilina was maligned!” He smiled sadly. “I will go to the Senators, my fellow patricians, and I will admit to them that my letters concerning your brother were false—they know it only too well, however. But I will say to them that I will tell the Roman people, and that will be of the greater importance to them.”

  He held out his hand to Quintus, but Quintus turned on his heel and left him.

  There were many more whom Quintus visited, old friends of his brother. Each expressed his love for Marcus. And from each Quintus ruthlessly extracted a promise of assistance, sometimes with threats and sometimes by the power of his noble anger. In the meantime, Terentia was not idle. She was ready enough to forget her husband, and she had not forgiven Marcus for once being great and she could not forgive him now for being nothing. Not only would she have been content now with her son and her fortune, but she would have been content with her husband’s fall had it not been for one thing—her husband’s dishonor and present obscurity were also her own. She considered divorce. But the divorce would not remove the dishonor nor restore her pride.

  So Terentia went to her family, and the members, stung that one of their relatives was dishonored in the dishonor of Cicero, listened to her pleadings and wiped away her tears. They were rich; many Senators were in their debt and many of them were friends. They gave Terentia not only promises but their oaths to help her husband. “We shall not permit your son, who is of our blood, to live in the shadow of disgrace all his life,” they said.

  “I see a sudden storm is arising concerning Cicero,” said Julius to Crassus. He winked at Pompey. “How fickle are the people of Rome! I hear rumors of public indignation. Let Cicero cool his forensic passions a little longer, and let him learn to be more prudent and less obdurate and unrealistic. Then we shall be generous. Perhaps.”

  The long and melancholy journey to beyond the four-hundred-mile limit outside Rome had almost destroyed Cicero. There were times that he was hopeful, on receiving letters from his wife and brother and friends in Rome—notably Atticus—and he would speak of his country with joy and anticipation, and would write his daughter that by the time summer arrived they would once again be on the island “where live all my dreams and my memories and the ashes of my fathers, the tomb of my mother.” But, as he halted briefly at the villas put at his disposal by his friends, he would recall that he was destitute, that his magnificent house on the Palatine was razed, his lands and his moneys confiscated, and
that of all his treasures there remained nothing, no, not even his books, and that he was homeless and penniless indeed. At these times despair would utterly seize him, and he would write letters of extreme lamentation to his family and friends in Rome, especially his brother and Atticus, so extreme indeed that on receiving them the faithful ones would fear that he had lost his mind through his misfortunes. He forgot a lifetime of misery with his wife, and wrote her letters of total anguish which she showed to her relatives, and Quintus, saying, “I have been called ill-tempered by Romans, and a burden to my husband, but behold! he writes me from his heart and longs for my arms!” But Quintus would say in his heart, “To such a pass has my noble brother come, that he could desire to see Terentia again!”

  There were times when Cicero wrote even violent letters to his devoted publisher, Atticus, upbraiding him that he had persuaded him, Cicero, not to commit suicide, “though a Roman prefers death to disgrace. What is there to live for? My afflictions surpass any you ever heard of before.” Once he thanked Atticus for the money he had sent him, but mourned that he did not believe Atticus when he had said that the sesterces “came from royalties, for who, in these past months, has bought any of my books? I should return the purses if I did not stand in the most desperate of needs. How shall I repay you? I confess I have only lamentations to offer you, and reproaches that you dissuaded me from taking my life.”