A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Page 73
I am convincing him against his own foolish convictions, thought Catilina with exultation. It is easier to convince a good and silly man than to convince a rascal, thank the gods. Catilina said, “Cicero forgets that times move, that a nation is always confronted by new situations and changes, and that which was excellent for our ancestors is anachronistic today.”†
“Cicero has said,” remarked Antonius in an appealing voice, “that though externals change, the nature of man does not, and therefore that which was true yesterday is true today and tomorrow.”
“Spoken like a true plebeian!” said Catilina. “But we patricians know there is no such thing as unchanging human nature. It can be readily molded and manipulated by laws. The Roman of today is not the Roman of yesterday. The old Roman declared that he who does not work neither shall he eat. But we are more cognizant of our public duties in these days, and are compassionate, and will let no man starve because he can find no employment or if the employment offered is distasteful to him. Is it not a man’s right to reject work for which he feels no interest, or if the wages offered are insufficient?”
Yesterday, thought the alarmed Antonius, I should have agreed with him, with all my heart and my enthusiasm! He said, “Then the mobs of Rome are one with the mercenaries—I mean the veterans—of Manlius?”
Again Catilina scrutinized him for duplicity, but found none in that open countenance and in eager shining of the eyes. He said soberly and with emphasis, “Yes, the people of Rome are one with the veterans. So are the miserable gladiators, and the hungry actors, and the intellectuals who love the people and are angered by the wrongs forced on them, and the artists, and the essayists, and all who feel a responsibility toward the common good, which includes many Senators and tribunes of the people, and the freedmen who are not permitted to forget that once their ancestors were slaves and bondsmen.”
Catilina rose and began to pace up and down the library as if seized by unbearable agitation and sorrow and noble anger. His face changed, became charged with wrath and emotion. He raised his right fist high in the air and shook it violently. “What am I to do, I who love the people and weep for their wrongs? What gods can I implore?”
Antonius said in grieving tones, his shoulders fallen and his hands hanging between his knees: “Yes, what are we to do?”
Catilina halted his pacing. He flung himself into a chair and leaned toward the other man and spoke in a hushed and panting voice. “You and I, Antonius, should be Consuls of Rome, you the first Consul, I your colleague. The Vetch did not win rightfully. He won by guile, and by his oratory. Is that the way of true Romans? Shall not our wrongs be redressed?”
Antonius pretended to immense eagerness. “You believe I should be Consul of Rome, Lucius?”
Catilina smiled darkly. “I do indeed. And I your colleague, in the name of Rome.” He paused, then continued, “Let us reason together. Desperate times demand desperate solutions.”
Julius Caesar said to Crassus and Clodius and Pompey, “So, he visited Antonius tonight, according to our spies, and he has left in a state of jubilation. No doubt he will go immediately to Manlius. What a fool is that Antonius! Has Catilina assigned him the task of assassinating Cicero publicly, in the name of Rome?”
“Without doubt,” said Crassus, meditatively chewing a fig and listening to the early winter gale outside his warm windows. “A stupid man can be induced to do anything, especially if he is emotional, and Antonius’ emotions are well known. He could be brother to the Gracchi.”
“We should have coddled Catilina, even though his madness repulsed us,” said Julius. “But I wearied of him. I thought even the mobs would become aware of his insanity. It seems I was wrong.”
“The politician who promises can always obtain enthusiastic followers,” said Clodius, surnamed Pulcher. “It is true that Catilina is mad. But his very madness appeals to the irresponsible rabble. Has it not been said that men are insane, though man is rational? What must we do to protect Cicero, that orator in a white toga?”
“He must be protected at all cost,” said Julius. “Catilina is now prepared to loose his criminals upon Rome. He is moving without us. We have restrained him thus far. But now we can restrain him no longer. Thanks to our stupid Antonius.”
“I suggest that Catilina be murdered,” said Clodius, idly refilling his goblet.
“How?” asked Crassus. “He surrounds himself with guards. He never sleeps without them. Let him be murdered, or even an attempt on his life, and the rabble would rise against us and that would be the end.”
Julius played with his rings. “We face a desperate dilemma. Were we to warn Cicero he would speak of ‘conspiracies’ again. Were we to guard him, he would reject the guard. He does not trust us.”
“Strange,” said Pompey.
His friends burst out laughing.
The momentary mirth was a relief. But they all knew that they must act at once. However, how they should act was a puzzle. On the one hand they had Cicero, who would mistrust them. On the other hand they had Catilina, and his dupe, Antonius, who would believe anything if it were said in sonorous periods and in the falsity of the righteous.
In the midst of their serious and alarmed arguments, Crassus’ overseer sidled into the dining room with the news that a hooded visitor begged to be admitted to the presence of Crassus, and to speak to the dictator in private. Crassus went into the atrium while the men he had left exchanged frowning glances and fell into an uneasy silence.
When Crassus appeared in the columned atrium with its singing fountains, the visitor threw back his hood and revealed the pale carved features of C. Antonius Hybrida. Crassus, who had known him from his birth, embraced him and exclaimed, “My dear young friend! How delightful it is to see you! I have guests. Join us.”
But Antonius, who seemed very agitated, grasped his arm and said, “Who are these guests, Licinius?”
Crassus’ eyes were a granite flash upon him. He paused. Then Crassus said slowly, “Caesar. Clodius. Pompey.”
“But not Catilina?”
“Not Catilina.”
“I thought you were not engaged with Pompey any longer, Licinius.”
Crassus smiled, but his eyes remained on him intently. “A minor quarrel, Antonius, which is now healed. What is this to you?”
But Antonius appeared even more agitated. “I have heard, long ago, Licinius, that you and Caesar and Catilina and Pompey and Clodius and Curius and Piso and Sittius Nucerinus, and many others, had conspired earlier together to murder Cicero, then seize power and Rome and declare yourselves rulers of the world. It was when Cicero was Praetor of Rome. Licinius! Declare that the rumor was false!”
Crassus put his fingers over the pressing ones on his arm. He raised his marked eyebrows. “I know of no such conspiracy, my friend. Did Cicero inform you of this ridiculous libel?”
“Then, it is not true?” The kind brown eyes, strained and anxious now, looked into the gray murkiness of the eyes of his father’s friend.
“It is not true,” said Crassus with slow emphasis. “Did Cicero take the libel seriously?”
Antonius sighed deeply and dropped his hand. “I pray the gods that you are not deceiving me, Licinius, for all Rome depends on the possibility that you speak in truth.”
Crassus spoke calmly, but the granite flash was deeper in his eye-sockets. “You may be certain that I speak the truth, Antonius. What is it that you wish to confide in me?”
But now Antonius hesitated and his pallor was touched with a sudden flush of color on his cheeks. “You know that rumor and I were never friends, and I believed only good of my fellows. I never credited the existence of villains, except in myth and story. I preferred to think well of others. I am not excitable, Licinius, or given to fantasy, or womanish alarms, nor do I see enemies where there are only shadows. Nevertheless, tonight I was told of a strange—a strange—” He faltered into silence.
Crassus maintained his calm. “What strange thing, dear friend?”
“Yes. It is Catilina. But how was it possible for you to know?”
Crassus led him from the atrium. “What you have to say you must say before Caesar, Pompey, and Clodius. We were discussing Catilina before you arrived.”
“Gods!” cried Antonius with despair, and holding back ineffectually against the stern clutch on his arm. “Then I have not been just affrighting myself! Your face, Licinius, your face—”
But Crassus drew him into the dining hall, and three faces turned to them from the table and none spoke or rose. Crassus thrust Antonius forward, then shut the large bronze doors and bolted them. His breath was loud and quick in the complete quiet. But in a moment he had recovered himself and could speak in a controlled voice. “Our friend, Antonius Hybrida, colleague of Cicero, has a matter to confide to us. Let us hear him with deep attention.”
Antonius looked from one to the other in great fear. He tried to smile. He could even regret for an instant that the pleb, Pompey the Magnus, who was no patrician, should be present at what he must say about a patrician, Lucius Sergius Catilina. Crassus stood beside him. He was afraid that Antonius would faint, and he said to Julius, “Give Antonius wine.” Julius stood up and filled a goblet and brought it with both hands clasped about it to the colleague of Cicero, and himself put the vessel to the other man’s pale lips. Antonius closed his eyes and drank. Then he opened them and looked at Caesar, Caesar who could always jest and perhaps would jest now, if only to encourage him, Antonius, and lessen his fear and take from him some of his pain. But Caesar was regarding him with great gravity and the antic eyes were as bright and commanding as the points of daggers.
“Speak, Antonius,” said Crassus, imperatively.
Antonius moistened his lips. Again, he looked from one to the other, from the stony face of Crassus to the eyes of Caesar, from the impassive broad countenance of Pompey to the grim visage of young Clodius. He tried to speak, and failed. He tried again. He was conscious of the enormous silence in the splendid room and the scent of viands and wine. Then with an utmost effort of will he stammered, “It—is Catilina. He came to me tonight, he left but an hour ago, with a strange story and a stranger request. It is impossible to believe.” He halted and turned to Crassus, who said:
“It is not impossible not to believe anything of Catilina. Speak, Antonius.”
So with a weak voice that trembled, and with eyes that implored incredulous laughter, Antonius told his story to the four men who never removed their gaze from his face and uttered no word and made no gesture of any kind, not even to shift on a chair.
“It is a mad tale,” Antonius ended. “I can only believe, and hope, that Catilina was drunk tonight.”
The three men, Caesar, Clodius, and Pompey, did not speak, however. They only stared at Crassus. But Antonius said, “You must tell me that this wild tale is not only incredible but that Catilina has become deranged.”
Crassus led him gently to a chair. Then he leaned toward him and said, “It is true that Catilina is mad. But the story he has told you is true. He has not told you all, my poor Antonius. He has said that he has with him the great-hearted of Rome, many Senators and patricians, who weep for Rome and its multitudes of the desperate. They are not greathearted, though they are indeed Senators and patricians; they are traitors to their nation. Catilina has promised them debt-remission, debts which they incurred through profligacy and extravagance or the financial ruin of their families.
“He has with him, as he has asserted, the hired mercenaries of Rome, who are not satisfied with the loot they were permitted to acquire, but shout for more. Few of them are true men of Rome, many are from Etruria, of poor families who are embittered by fate, and seek revenge on gods and men. Of those who are true Romans, they are those who are veterans of Sulla, who have already wasted the grants given them lavishly, and had hoped to live for the rest of their lives at ease on the substance of the people. Catilina has told you they are ‘wronged and patriotic veterans.’ He lied.
“When he tried to move your kind heart with the story of the ‘oppressed multitudes’ of Rome, did he tell you truly who they are? No! In the vast majority they are Asiatics and others from a dozen other nations, criminals, adventurers, gladiators, pugilists, pirates, bandits, the scum of all the gutters of the world, who came to Rome in the hope of rapine and rapid fortune, or because they were hunted from their own countries and fled for shelter within these walls. They are unspeakable dogs and swine, beggars and mendicants, thieves and the diseased, and many of them are runaway slaves or low freedmen.
“Then there are those among our own class who are not content with the honors of their birth and station, and their money, but who long for power and empire. These stand with Catilina also, who has promised them that for which they dream. We know their names; we can control them.
“But I tell you, Antonius, that we cannot control the others!”
Antonius raised his hands then dropped them despairingly. “You knew of this, and did nothing?”
“We knew.” Crassus flicked the gray glitter of his eyes over his shoulder at the three silent men still at the table. “But we have had little to do with Catilina for a long time, knowing he was mad, and fearing his madness, though not underestimating his fearful power over those I have mentioned. We hoped that he had lost his following, that his increasing madness would overwhelm him. We should have had him quietly murdered.”
Antonius stared at him, aghast. “Murdered! You, Crassus, triumvir of Rome, and a man of law? You speak of murder so casually?”
Julius Caesar was forced, even then, to put his hand over his mouth to control a sudden desire to laugh at this earnest man who had not believed the rumors in Rome which had not even approached in virulence the outmost borders of the real truth. Pompey’s broad face expressed nothing, and Clodius compressed his lips to stop a cynical smile.
“Is it wrong to kill a traitor, a madman, a man who would destroy your country?”
“My dear Licinius,” Antonius faltered, “it is wrong to take the law into one’s own hands, and that you know surely.”
“True,” said Crassus, with the utmost gravity. “But these are desperate times, though it seems you were not aware of them, my good friend. We are in a state of war. We have dallied too long. Yes, we knew of Catilina and his frightful plots. But there was one thing that we did not know: When he would move. You have now told us, and for that all Rome will honor and revere your name.
“You have asked me why he came to you, the colleague of Cicero. In his black and deranged heart he believed that as you received the second largest vote, after Cicero, you would be resentful and lustful, as he is both resentful and lustful. Who would not desire to be Consul of Rome, the highest office in the land? Therefore, reasoned Catilina, you were sleepless with hatred. You are also a patrician, like himself. He believed that this Cicero was something you could not endure. And then”—here Crassus hesitated deliberately and held Antonius with the power of his clever eyes—“he thought you a man whom he could delude with promises to make you Consul of Rome. He thought you as vile as himself.”
Antonius had suddenly covered his face with his hands as if to shut out what he could not bear to see. Crassus flashed another look at the three silent men at the table, and his hard mouth jerked slightly. He continued:
“You have told us of his plot against Cicero’s life, for it is necessary for many reasons, to Catilina, that Cicero must die. Let me repeat this, as you have told it, that we have understood no error. You are, on a certain night next week, to send a message to Cicero through your freedman, Solus, at midnight, imploring Cicero to see you at once on a matter of the greates
t importance. You are Cicero’s friend and colleague; you have a great love for him. He would trust you, and grant you an interview at once, no matter the hour.
“As Cicero is Consul he has soldiers to guard him. But on receiving your urgent request for an audience, even at midnight, he would inform the soldiers that you were expected and not to delay your passage to him through the gates of his house and into his presence. As the streets at that hour are always dangerous you would naturally come with a bodyguard of your own freedmen or trusted slaves, cloaked and hooded, and they would enter with you. But in reality they would be Catilina and a number of his friends. Once in Cicero’s presence they would all fall on him at once and slay him.” Crassus looked down at the wretched man seated before him and he smiled fully now, with mingled contempt and pity.
“Have you not considered something, Antonius? The soldiers and their captain would have been informed of your arrival and would have admitted you with the conspirators. They would also have recognized you, for they know you well. Would Catilina, then, have permitted you to live, to betray him? No. You would have died an instant after Cicero had died.”
Antonius let his hands fall. He looked up into Crassus’ face speechlessly and Crassus thought: Surely it is not possible that the thought had not occurred even to this credulous mind?
Crassus said, “His vileness is so monstrous that he could underestimate you. Fortunately for Rome, for Cicero, and for yourself, you are not the man Catilina judged you were.”
“But what can we do?” cried Antonius in a hopeless voice. “Much,” said Crassus. “We can go to Cicero at once, even if he has retired and it is late, and tell him of the nearness of disaster and chaos. But the danger is not past! We have known for a long time that this madman, this appalling creature, longs to burn Rome, herself! Why? Out of perversity, out of the black destructiveness that lives in his inhuman heart.”