“That is because He has need for you, dear Marcus,” they would answer him. “Can He spare one single just man?”
“Tell me again of the Messias,” Marcus would say. “I had forgotten Him.”
“I am afraid,” said Noë, “that men will not recognize Him at all, but will abuse and scorn and kill Him. For hearken to what David says will be His fate; and what He says of Himself:
“‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me, why are You so far from helping Me? I cry in the daytime, but You hear me not. —I am a reproach of men, and despised of the people, and they that see Me laugh Me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, “He trusted the Lord that He would deliver Him. Let Him deliver Him, seeing that He delighted in Him.” They gaped upon Me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My Heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of My bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and You have brought Me to the dust of death. I may tell all My bones; they look and stare upon Me. They part My garments among them and cast lots upon My vestures.’
“You will see,” said Noë, “that despite what the Pharisees declare—that the Messias will come with the sound of many silver trumpets and with powers and dominions of angels, and with thunder—He will truly be born as the humblest and the meekest and will endure an agonizing death, as the Sacrifice for sinful man. It is very mysterious. Shall we know Him? I doubt it. But still, God will reveal Him, for David speaks of Him: ‘I have set My King upon My holy hill of Sion. I will declare the decree: You are My Son. This day have I begotten You. Ask of Me, and I shall give You the heathen for Your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Your possession!’”
“We have His sign, the Cross,” said Anotis, “which is the Resurrection, and this we have had for many, many ages.”
Marcus listened avidly, and in his heart he said, “Forgive me, that I doubted You and forgot You. I felt an exile, but is it not true that exile or not, the mind makes its own place and cannot be moved from it? I am a Roman, and remain a Roman. I have not left Rome. Rome has left me.”
When his friends were forced to leave for their own homes Marcus accompanied them to the port of Salonika. He watched the great winged ship fall below the horizon and he was again filled with sorrow. Then he thought, They are not gone. We say “farewell,” but in another harbor they say, “Here they return!” He went to the villa, but no longer was it a place of abominable exile. It was his home for a time, before he returned to Rome. He began to write spirited letters to his family and his friends, and to Caesar and Pompey, demanding that they recall him.
At night he would pray in the words of King David, which Noë had taught him:
“I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth. He will not suffer your foot to be moved; He Who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He Who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your Guardian; the Lord is your Shade upon your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.”
And at midnight he would look upon the bright heavens and repeat with David: “You are My Son. This day have I begotten You.”
Was this the day, or the hour. Marcus questioned the stars. Marcus looked for the Star of which Anotis had told him; But the heavens were bland and still. Marcus went to his chamber and gazed at the figure of the Maiden great with Child, and he pondered and a thrill of sweetness ran through him as if he had heard a loving voice in the wilderness of the world, a voice calling him home. He laid a sheaf of lilies before the figure. He kissed the feet of the Maiden Mother.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
“We are beset,” said Julius Caesar to Crassus. “Suddenly, the whole city rings with the name of Cicero, and there are indignant writings on the walls. All demand the recall of Cicero. Let us be magnanimous, and the people we rule will forget our decrees and hail us as noble friends and benefactors.”
“I say yes,” said Pompey, and raised up his thumb.
Young Porcius Cato, the tribune, squire and patrician, went to Senators who were friends of his family. “Pusillanimous men!” he cried to them. “You have exiled the man who saved Rome and yourselves. The people are in a ferment. Recall him!”
The storm of protest angered and confounded Crassus. He tried to discover those who had invoked the storm that raged now in Rome, but it was as if Cicero had raised champions from the very stones of the streets. Then indeed it became dangerous to resist, and Crassus gloomily consulted the guilty Senate. “It is not a matter to be easily overcome,” said the Senators. “If we declare ourselves in the wrong then the people must despise us. There is also Antonius Hybrida, that confused fool, who threatens to go to the new Consul, P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, with his confession, and all know that Lentulus is an old friend of Cicero’s. Let us consider together.”
In true Italianate fashion, they decided to so confuse the issue that no finger could be pointed at any distinct person as the man who had forced recall of Cicero, and therefore no particular man would be forced to explain. Pompey wrote a cautious letter to Cicero, reminding of his love for him, and stating that he sleeplessly worked to secure his recall, “but it now lies with Caesar, your old dear friend.” Pompey added: “Your publisher, who is now very rich and influential, ceaselessly seizes influential men by the shoulder and harangues them in your behalf. As he has many comedians in his pay, whom he calls satiric authors, many fear him.”
The noble tribune, Ninnius, who had always loved Cicero, went to Julius and looked at him with wise and sparkling eyes. “Once I introduced a bill to recall Cicero,” he said. “Clodius opposed it, and he won. Now the new tribunes elect, including your friend Titus Annius Milo, are in favor of Cicero’s recall. They will vote on it. Are you opposed?”
“I?” exclaimed Julius. “Is there ever a day that I do not pray that my dear Marcus’ exile be ended?”
“Pray harder,” said Ninnius. The wise eyes gleamed but the rest of his face was very serious. He did not fear the terrible Committee of Three who now held Rome as a slave. “You have a most eloquent tongue, dear Caesar. Speak to the Senators.”
“I have spoken often to them,” said Julius. “I shall speak again,” he added in the gravest of tones, and Ninnius, concealing a smile, bowed and left him. The people loved Ninnius for his honor. There had been a threat under the calmness of his voice, and Julius always listened to threats. “It is a stupid tyrant who is vainglorious and believes himself invincible and invulnerable,” he said to the other members of the Committee. “It is said the Xerxes listened first to the humblest of his slaves, and second only to his ministers. For the ministers were loyal for his favors, but the slave had nothing to lose by telling the truth.”
The leaves of the trees of Rome were turning red and brown and yellow when Ninnius made a new motion before the Senate for the recall of Cicero. Eight Senators promptly voted in favor, the others abstaining. But strong in their numbers, the eight Senators proposed a bill for the recall. It did not pass. However, though the exile was not ended, the Senate did return Cicero all his civil rights and former rank. He was so notified. But now his strength and pride had been restored. He refused to return to Rome unless all of his seized properties were restored to him, and a new house on the Palatine built for him. In the meantime he went to reside in Dyrrachium where he had access to a great library. There Atticus, optimistic and full of affection, visited him to tell him of events and the mighty sales in Rome of Cicero’s new book. He placed a lavish purse in his friend’s hands, half of which came from his own purse, but not to Cicero’s knowledge. He brought cheering news of the health of Cicero’s family, and the courageous work of Quintus in behalf of his brother.
“Bands from all over Italy are coming to Rome to demand your recall, and the restoration of all that was taken from you,�
�� said Atticus. “Lentulus has declared that as soon as the Sacred Rites are completed in Janus he will bring another motion before the Senate in your favor, for the Consuls are with you.”
Atticus was overcome with delight and joy that his friend and author should be so in control of himself, for he had feared for his mind and life over these many months. Marcus appeared strong again, and even serene, and most resolute. “They would have me return with my restored rank and my civil rights,” he said to Atticus. “But, how shall I live? How governments cling to the money they steal from the citizens! One would think they had earned it themselves! If I live in poverty in Rome, the Senate would be happy, for still all men would say, ‘He is a poor thing, that Cicero, in more ways than one, and too old to rise again.’ Alas, that only money in these degenerate days bestows honor! Therefore, let the Senate fume and complain that I do not return, until the day all is restored to me.”
Atticus, on returning to Rome, kept Marcus abreast of events. “The scene is like that of a mosaic, hanging in order and pattern and story upon a wall, and then suddenly each tile falls from its place and all is confused color and chaos and formless. Resolutions are passed, revoked. Lentulus pleads, the Senate listens, then denies. Pompey has declared that only an edict of the people (lex) can recall you, and this is true. Caesar addresses the Senate, calling himself their servant, and evoking grim smiles while he pleads for you. Crassus, calling himself an even humbler slave of the Roman people, addresses the Senate, and they listen solemnly. Therefore, it seems that all Italy desires your return, and the Senate, and the Committee of Three, and the nobility, and all the ‘new’ men. But, there is Publius Clodius, who hates you, and he is very powerful.”
Atticus did not add, in his letter, that Cicero’s brother, Quintus, had been set on, in open daylight, in the Forum, by the minions of Clodius and that he had been left for dead on the stones. His life was saved only by the most ardent care and many physicians. Atticus did not deem it prudent to alarm Cicero, who might then charge back to Rome in fearful anxiety for his brother and thus tacitly agree to the terms of the Senate, that only his civil rights and his rank be restored to him. It seemed vile, to Atticus, that the corrupt mobs of Rome, whom Clodius appeared to control even more than they were controlled by the Triumvirate, should stand between Cicero and his honorable recall and restoration of properties. But every Roman, no matter his wit or lack of it, his learning or his ignorance, his character or his baseness, had a vote equal to any in Rome, and when his fellows gathered in the Forum to vote they were easily inflamed and riots were very numerous. Let them gather to vote in the case of Cicero, and Clodius, who bribed the masses constantly, would incite them to riot and disorder. Cicero was only a name to the mobs, and that name was anathema to their master, Clodius. It was enough for them. “Such are the uses of democracy,” Atticus thought, while he was writing to his friends. “The voice of the people is frequently the voice of jackasses and criminals and the demented and the avid bellies. They will believe the most monstrous lies if spoken by their current favorite and servant in politics. They will defame the best, if so commanded. They will riot and commit wholesale murder at the behest of any rascal who alleges he loves and serves them out of the nobility of his heart. The mob neither loves nor hates Cicero for himself. But they hate him because Clodius has commanded them so to hate. And this is democracy!”*
Lentulus decided to divert the mobs. As Consul of Rome, he gave them vast spectacles in the circuses, more awesome than they had ever seen before, and while they were entranced by the bloody amusements Lentulus met with the Senate in the Temple of Honor and Virtue and resolved on a bill for the complete recall of Cicero, the restorations of his properties, and marks of honor. But Clodius, suspecting the plot, was able to keep the bill from passage.
Then Pompey, the soldier who despised the reckless and undisciplined mobs, moved resolutely. In the company of many distinguished men, including Lentulus and Servilius, he addressed the people in the Forum, and appealed to their decency which he privately considered they did not possess—and their virtue—in which he did not believe—and to their honor—of which he was convinced they possessed none at all. He was a member of the terrible Triumvirate, whom all men feared, and no member of that Triumvirate had heretofore spoken publicly and directly, in the Forum, to the people, before that day in behalf of Cicero or anyone or anything else. The mob was flattered. They promised, in acclamation, to vote in favor of Cicero’s recall, momentarily forgetting their master, Clodius. Pompey then assured them of their nobleness of soul and heart and mind, and, thinking of Cicero, his voice trembled with sincerity and the emotional mob saw the tears of the great soldier and general who so humbled himself before them. Pompey said later to Lentulus, “Pray the gods keep the vehemence alive in them, at least until Cicero is recalled!”
Clodius strove with his followers, and the Praetor and three magistrates and several tribunes stood with him in his adamant enmity against Cicero. But, to Clodius’ rage and incredulity and complete bafflement, the people did not follow him this time, for though he had bribed them often enough, Pompey had flattered them and had aroused the latent instinct for decency in them—a very rare phenomenon, as Atticus wittily noted in a letter. In short, it was a miracle. “If God did not interfere occasionally in the affairs of men,” Atticus wrote, “then in truth we should fall into chaos, and no criminal or murderer would ever be apprehended and no justice ever done, and no vile politician ever exposed for the liar he is.”
The people kept their promise to Pompey and in late summer they voted for the recall of Cicero, the restoration of his civil rights and rank, all his properties, and marks of honor as a hero of Rome. The banishment was over, and Tullia met her beloved father on the shores of his homeland and threw herself in his arms. He put her from him gently, and knelt down and kissed the sacred earth and wet the soil of his fathers with his tears. All that he had endured was less than his joy.
If the people had been slow to recall him they were passionate in their acclamations in his honor all through Italy when he traveled home. He passed through Capua, Naples, Minturnae, Sinuessa, Formiae, where sumptuous villas were placed at his disposal by friends, and in the vicinity of which his own former villas had been destroyed by the government in its enthusiastic malice. Magistrates received him with laurel and bay leaf crowns, saluting him and kissing his hands, and huge crowds hailed him with cries of “Hero!” and mighty ovations. Farmers and their families lined the roads, strewing flowers in his path. Deputations rushed to meet him, to prostrate themselves at his feet, calling him the savior of all Italy. Every hamlet and town along his passage declared a fiesta in his honor, and all abandoned labor to greet him thunderously. The large car in which he rode with his daughter and friends could hardly proceed for hours, so great was the crush of the Italian populace. Judges called him the pillar of law, the foundation of the Constitution. Fellow lawyers gave banquets in his honor, exclaiming that lawyers forevermore would be sanctified in his name.
Exhausted, pale, and surfeited, thinking only that he was once more on the sacred soil of Italy, he paused one night before entering Rome for a rest in the villa of a friend. He said to Tullia, “If I were younger I should be beguiled into believing that all men formerly stood with me, and that now they are vindicated in my person. But I am no longer young; therefore, though I am happy and my heart is moved at all these demonstrations, I remember that these same acclaimers shunned me on this very same journey, in reverse, when I moved to exile. Man is a feeble thing; he acclaims when it is harmless to acclaim, and approves. When it is demanded that he denounce and defame—especially if the government so demands—then he is just as vehement and just as righteous. A word from Rome to destroy me, and tomorrow those who now kiss my hands would cut my throat—with equal enthusiasm. Man feels the happiest when he believes he is conforming to his fellows, and that is a sad and terrible augury for the future.”
Tullia, weary herself, demurred. “Surely
they truly love you, my father.”
Cicero replied: “I do not trust my fellowmen, though once I trusted them. I only pray for them. They believe that universal popularity is the measure of a man’s worth.”
It was the twenty-third night of his triumphal journey through the countless throngs of his fellow Italians. At his urgent request there was no banquet, no long wearisome speeches on the part of magistrates, lawyers, judges, and exigent politicians, no exuberances from the people, for Italians, above all, love festivities and emotion and demonstrations, especially in behalf of suddenly popular men. Tomorrow he would enter Rome. He sat in his beautiful chamber, the bedroom of his host, while the large villa hummed with envoys from the Senate and the host importantly interviewed them, promised to deliver messages to Cicero in the morning, wined and dined the visitors and scurried through passageways. The bedroom was filled with flowers. Cicero was almost prostrated with exhaustion. Tullia, herself, bathed his feet and laid out his ceremonial robes for the morrow. For the first time, as he smiled at her, he noted that she appeared more subdued than he had remembered before his exile, more fragile, more delicate. Her slender face, so like his, was very pale. Her long light brown hair fell down her frail back, and her hands were too thin and trembled a little. Her eyes, again so like his own, seemed duller for all her youth, and her ways even more gentle than he remembered. He was suddenly alarmed.
A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome Page 85
