Catilina's riddle rsr-3

by Steven Saylor

  'Did I?' said Crassus, cocking his head and drawing up his shoulders. 'Yes, so I did, however scarcely. So you are a freedman now, Meto?'

  'Yes.'

  "The adopted son of Gordianus?'

  I moved my lips to answer, but Meto answered first. 'I am.'

  'How interesting. Yes, only recently a friend of mine happened to inform me of your circumstances.' Did he mean Catilina? Or could it have been his once-protege, Marcus Caelius? Whichever, I did not like the idea of my family being discussed behind my back. 'Odd, how this detail of your manumission and adoption had somehow escaped my attention all these years.'

  'It hardly seems a matter worthy of concern to a man as eminent as yourself, citizen,' said Meto, returning Crassus's scrutiny with an unwavering gaze. I looked at Meto, slighdy awed. Not only had he said exactly what I would have said, but he had said it just as I would have tried to, with the very same, deliberately straightforward inflection, neither contemptuous nor servile. Sometimes we open our mouths and hear our parents speak; sometimes our children open their mouths and our own voices come out

  'The last I knew of you, Meto, you were in Sicily, where I had arranged for you to be,' said Crassus, delicately avoiding the crass vocabulary of commerce and ownership. 'Just as I had arranged for that one to be off to Egypt,' he added, indicating Apollonius and casting a sharp glance at Mummius. 'What part did Marcus Mummius play in frustrating those delicate arrangements, I wonder? Never mind. Now I meet you in a toga, Meto, on your way up to the Arx to celebrate your citizenship.' His lips compressed into the thinnest of smiles. He narrowed his eyes and shifted them between me and Meto. 'The goddess Fortune has smiled on you, Meto. May she smile on you always,' he said in a hollow voice, and turned away, summoning his retinue after him.

  Perhaps he meant it, for above and beyond the triumph of the individual will, a Roman respects and bows to the incomprehensible caprices of Fortune, and to a man like Crassus the salvation of a boy like Meto, in the face of all Crassus's efforts to the contrary, might very well seem a supernatural occurrence, evidence of the intervention of the gods and thus an occasion for respect and the humble expression of goodwill. Who knows, after all, when the goddess Fortune might turn her back even on the richest man in Rome?

  The lengthy retinues passed. We pressed onward and upward, only to encounter another retinue. Coming down from the citadel, following Crassus and Caesar, was Cicero himself, together with his fellow consul, the notorious nonentity y Gaius Antonius. At the party, Rufus had said something in passing about Cicero wearing armour — 'that absurd breast-plate’ he had called it, and had then passed on to another subject without explaining. Now I saw what he had meant, for covering Cicero's chest and reflecting the harsh gleam of the afternoon sun was a burnished breastplate such as a general might wear in combat Cicero's consular toga was loosened at the neck and throat so that the boldly shaped pectorals of the hammered and filigreed metal were fully displayed. Around him hovered a bodyguard of armed men, surly-looking fellows who walked with their hands on the hilts of their sheathed daggers. It struck me that such a display was less worthy of a consul of the Republic than of a suspicious autocrat — even the dictator Sulla had gone about the Forum unarmed and unguarded, trusting the gods to protect him.

  Before I could ask Rums to explain the breastplate and the heavy bodyguard, Cicero was upon us. In the middle of conversing with Antonius he caught sight of Rufus. His expression passed through rapid changes. He looked at first genuinely pleased, then grave and doubtful, then almost playfully shrewd — the face of a mentor who has lost the allegiance of a once-devoted pupil but does not despair of regaining it. 'Dear Rufus!' he said, smiling broadly.

  'Cicero,' said Rufus in return, without emotion.

  'And Marcus Mummius, back from serving Pompey in the East.

  And Gordianus,' said Cicero, finally seeing me. His voice went

  flat for a moment, then took on a politician's affable familiarity. 'Ah, yes, you've come to take the auspices for young Meto's coming of age. We're all getting older, aren't we, Gordianus?'

  Some more than others, I thought, though the years had actually done much to soften Cicero's unlovely features. The thin, sharp nose was now rather fleshy; the slender neck with its prominent knob was now padded with rings of fat; the pointed chin had become lost in jowls. The man whose delicate constitution would hardly allow him to eat in the heat of the day had nevertheless managed to grow portly. Cicero had never been handsome, but he had managed to acquire a look of prosperity and self-assurance. His voice, once grating and unpleasant, had been trained and transformed over the years into a melodious instrument. 'How I regret that I was unable to attend your party,' he said. 'The demands of being consul are unending — you understand, I'm sure. But I did send Marcus Caelius to offer my apologies. He did deliver his message, did he not?' The look in his eyes gave a deeper meaning to the question.

  'Caelius came,' I said. 'But his message was misdirected. He left dissatisfied.'

  'Oh?' Cicero sounded unconcerned, but his eyes flashed. 'Well, my fellow consul and I must hurry on — we have pressing business in the Senate. Good luck in your campaign, Rufus! Good fortune to you, Meto!'

  As they passed, I said in a low voice to Rufus, 'Well, augur, what did you make of that flicker of lightning — the one in Cicero's eyes?' 'Is there trouble between you?'

  "There's likely to be. But what is this business of his wearing a breastplate? And going about with such a formidable bodyguard?'

  'He looks absurd!' bellowed Mummius. 'like a mockery of a military man. Does he dare to mock Pompey?'

  'Hardly,' said Rufus. 'He began to wear it the day he postponed the elections, saying that Catilina was plotting to murder him in the confusion of voting day — "To save his own life, the consul of the Roman Republic must resort to wearing armour and surrounding himself with armed men," et cetera. It's a tactic to get the crowd's attention and alarm the voters; it's political theatre, spectacle, nothing more. After what Cicero and his brother did to Catilina's good name in the consular campaign last year, no one would be surprised if Catilina wanted to murder him. Who knows, perhaps there is a plot to assassinate Cicero; but for Cicero it's just more grist for the mill of his shrill rhetoric'

  'Politics!' Mummius barked. 'I had enough of it the year I served as praetor. Give me orders to follow and men to order, and I'm happy.'

  'Well,' I said, huffing and puffing from the exertion of the steep ascent, 'for the moment, at least, let us put all such unworthy matters behind us.' Quite literally behind us, and beneath us as well, I thought, turning my head to glance down at the teeming Forum far below. ‘We have arrived at the summit. There is nothing but blue sky between us and the eyes of Jupiter. Here in this place, my son becomes a man.'

  XX

  On battlefields and in the countryside, where there is no permanent place for performing auguries, a sacred tent must be pitched before the augur may begin his work. High up on the Arx in Rome, above a steep semicircular cliff with an expansive view of the whole northern horizon, there is a paved place open to the sky called the Auguraculum, especially consecrated for the taking of the auspices. The only structure is a permanently pitched tent maintained by the college of augurs. Like the special robes they wear, it has a purple border and is shot with stripes of saffron. It is a small tent, so small that one would have to stoop to step inside, though so far as I know no one ever goes inside.

  Why a tent? I do not know, especially since the taking of the auspices by definition must be performed outdoors with a view of the sky. Perhaps it is the ancient linkage of the augurs with military campaigns, where their approval of the omens must still be sought before a general can engage his troops in battle. Perhaps it is because the augurs study not only the flights of birds and peregrinations of quadrupeds, but also the occurrence of lightning bolts, the study of which dates back to the Etruscans and beyond; where there is lightning, after all, there is likely to be rain, and thus the need for a te
nt.

  However it may be, we found ourselves gathered on the Arx before the sacred tent. Rufus took up his ivory wand and with it marked out a section of the heavens from which he would take the auspices, like an invisible window frame set into the sky. Through it I could see most of the Field of Mars, a wide bend of the Tiber, and a great swathe of land beyond.

  The augurs divide birds into two classes, those whose cry signifies

  the divine win, including the raven, the crow, the owl, and the woodpecker, and those whose flight may be read for the same significations, including the vulture, the hawk, and the eagle, Jupiter's favourite bird. On military expeditions, where an omen may be needed on short notice and wild fowl may be scarce, chickens are taken along in special cages. To determine the will of the gods, the doors of the coop are thrown open and a handful of grain is thrown on the ground. A strong show of appetite on the part of the hens is deemed a good sign, especially if they drop little bits of food from their beaks onto the ground. A reluctance to leave the cage or a show of finickiness is a bad sign. As for the reading of lightning, it has always been my understanding that lightning on the left is good, but on the right is bad. Or is it the other way around?

  There are those, like Cicero, who believe that augury is utter nonsense, and will say so in private letters and conversations. There are those politicians like Caesar who see augury as a useful tool, and have no more or less contempt for it than they do for any other device of power, such as elections, taxation, or courts of law. And there are those like Rufus who sincerely believe in the manifestation of divine will in various phenomena and in their own ability to perceive and interpret those manifestations.

  For myself, standing in the hot sun and wishing I had thought to bring my broad-brimmed hat, I began to wish that the ceremonial tent behind us contained a chicken coop so that we could get on with the divination. All the birds of Rome appeared to be napping, and there was not a thundercloud in sight.

  An augury takes as long as an augury takes. The divine will is not at the beck and call of even the youngest and most charming of the augurs. The gods have other things to do than to make a raven cackle or send a vulture soaring on the hot wind. Patience is the first duty of the pious.

  Even so, I found my thoughts wandering. My eyes strayed from the designated section of the heavens to the eastern escarpment of the Arx, over which, if I stood on my toes, I could glimpse the Forum below. It was still full of people, but a stillness and a hush had fallen on the crowd. "Within the Senate House the senators were debating, and the men of Rome awaited word of their leaders' decision. Cicero was probably speaking even now. Caesar and Crassus might join in the argument, if it suited their ends to do so, as might Cato, with his heavy moralizing, and the troublemaker Clodius, and the year's forgotten consul, the nonentity Antonius. Catilina would be there as well, to defend himself, to strike back at Cicero, to demand that the election proceed. Was it really possible that he could be elected consul? And if so, could he force the Senate to implement his radical programmes? Would Caesar and Crassus support him — to a point? Would the state come to a standstill? Be torn apart? Descend again into bloody civil war? And who then would pick up the pieces — Crassus, Caesar, Pompey.. Catilina?

  'There!' cried a hushed voice behind me. It was Eco, who had spotted something with wings in the sky. I shook my head, drowsy from the heat and trying to remember where my thoughts had wandered. I blinked and stared at the dark spot that hovered above the city. Unfortunately, it flew about in a low spiral and then descended, never having entered the designated section of the sky. Not an omen, after all. Around me I heard a collective sigh of disappointment. Rufus stood near the precipice, his back to us, so that I could not see his face. But his shoulders remained erect, his chin upraised and confident. He had faith in his science, and patience with the gods.

  I should not have eaten so much at Meto's party, I thought. Cicero was correct: a man should eat only the lightest of meals at midday. But then, Cicero had always had a complaining belly. I felt no discomfort, only a heavy fullness, and a great sleepiness from the heat and from the tiring ascent to the Arx. I could barely keep my eyes open…

  The last time Rome had been plunged into civil war the result had been disastrous. Sulla had triumphed, and with him the most reactionary elements in the state. Laws giving power to the populace had been repealed. The constitution had been reformed to give the wealthy greater influence over popular elections and law courts, and within the upper classes Sulla had done his best to exterminate the opposition. A generation later the state was in greater chaos than ever. Many of Sulla's reforms had been repealed and populist forces were on the move again, but Sulla's legacy lived on in the deprivation of the children of his victims and in the wholesale failure of his agrarian policy — the veterans he had intended to become farmers had ruined their land and were now rallying in desperation behind Catilina. Discontent was everywhere, except among that tiny handful who always had and always would possess more wealth and power than they could ever hope to use in a lifetime. Their comfortable state had been given to them by the gods, they believed; perhaps Cicero had been given to them as well, a sweet voice that could sing the turbulent masses to sleep…

  Worst of all had been the heads, I thought. The heads of Sulla's enemies, spitted on poles and lined up in the Forum for all to see. Bounty hunters cut off the heads and brought them to Sulla for a reward. For the bodies they had no use. What had become of all the bodies, the bodies without heads? Suddenly, as clearly as on the day Diana found it, I saw the body of Nemo beneath me on the straw, with the blood all clotted about the stump of his neck. The shock of it was so great that I gasped and my shoulders convulsed.

  'Yes! At last' whispered Eco in my ear, his hand on the back of my neck. 'There, flying up swiftly from the river.'

  I blinked, confused and dazed by the brightness. White stones blazed at my feet and the sun seemed to have filled up the sky. In the midst of so much light a tiny black form took shape, flying from left to right and growing larger until it resolved itself into a body with long, outstretched wings.

  'A hawk,' whispered Eco.

  'No,' said Mummius, 'an eagle!'

  The bird circled once over the Field of Mars and then grew larger and larger as it approached. Its speed was stunning; no horse could have galloped so fast across the sky. A moment later it landed so close to Rufus that he could have bent down to touch it if he dared. We stood transfixed and silent. We stared at the eagle, and the eagle stared back. I had never seen one so close. Then, as suddenly as it had landed, it spread its giant wings and ascended over our heads, straight up into the sun.

  I lowered my eyes, blinking and half-blind. Rufus turned towards us with a look of awe on his face. 'The omen,' I said. 'Was it good?'

  'Good?' He frowned at me quizzically, then broke into a smile. 'It could not possibly have been better!'

  Had the city not already been consumed with the immediate controversies swirling around Catilina and the elections, perhaps the prodigious omen that landed at Rufus's feet would have excited great comment. Had it occurred on a lazy summer day when nothing else of importance was happening in the Forum, the gossip would have spread through the squares and taverns — Jupiter's bird, an eagle, alighting at the Auguraculum for a boy's simple passage to manhood, and a boy who had once been a slave, at that! The superstitious would have found it either inspiring or fearsome, a sign of the gods' displeasure or their benediction. But in the general chaos of that day, the incident went unremarked except among those who were there.

  On the path back down to the Forum, Marcus Mummius was greatly excited. 'An eagle, a military bird! It portends a great career in the army!' I noticed Meto smiling at such talk, and I wished that Mummius would be silent.

  I turned to Rufus, who had changed from his augur's trabea back into his candidate's toga. 'Is that what it means, Rufus?'

  'Not necessarily.' Meto overheard and his smile faded, for which I was glad. I w
anted no thoughts of military glory going through his head. I had not rescued the boy from slavery to see him spill his blood for some ambitious general.

  Rufus slowed his pace and let the others go ahead of us. He touched my arm to signal that I should stay back with him. His expression was uneasy. His initial ebullience at the eagle's landing had vanished, replaced by uncertainty. 'It's a powerful portent, Gordianus. Never has such a thing happened to me, and not to any other augur so far as I know.'

  'But it's a good portent?' I said hopefully. 'You seemed to think so at the time it happened.'

  'Yes, but what I felt was a kind of religious awe. That can blind a man, even an augur. All omens are awesome, because they come from the gods, but what they mean for mortal men does not always bring us happiness.'

  'Rufus, what are you saying?'

  'I almost wish the auspices had been less prodigious. A simple sighting of a vulture, a crow flying in an upward spiral—'

  'But an eagle sent from Jupiter, surely that's good—'

  'Such a powerful omen, appearing at such a modest occasion — it worries me. It seems out of place, out of balance. We live in a time when small men are drawn into great events — sometimes elevated to greatness themselves by those events, but more often crushed by them. Meto is so simple and good-natured, what can it mean that such a potent auspice should attend his coming of age? It worries me.'

  'Oh, Rufus—' I almost forgot myself and would have scoffed in his face, but my respect for him was too great. Still, I felt myself in sympathy with disbelievers like Cicero, who in private shake their heads at the hand-wringing of the pious. Or was I only putting a good face on my own anxiety? 'Perhaps the omen was misdirected. Perhaps it has something to do with Catilina or Cicero. Perhaps it was meant tor the consuls and arrived an hour too late! The gods do make mistakes from time to time — all the poets say so.'