A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Page 97
Forty-three years later the event Cicero had so yearned to see came to pass, and the hour for which he had longed.
The purple ramparts of heaven were shaken, and the golden pillars thereof. As Rome thundered down the bloody path to tyranny and to the despotisms of the Caesars she had bred, a little Jewish maiden stood in the tiny hamlet of Nazareth one calm spring evening in the last of the sunset’s glow, and breathed in the warmth of the air and the new scent of jasmine. She was very young; she was hardly past puberty, and she was the delight of her parents’ hearts. Her hair flowed down her straight back and her blue eyes—for she was a Nazarene—looked serenely at the heavens, and she prayed as always she prayed, with humility and joy, to the Lord her God, the Protector of her house, which was the ancient House of David.
She stood on the roof of her parents’ home as she prayed, her hands folded together, and the headcloth on her small head was white, for she was a virgin. Her coarse dress was as blue as her eyes, and her childish feet were bare.
Suddenly she knew that she was not alone, and she started, full of fear. The sunset air about her palpitated with a light brighter and clearer than the sun, and it was sown with stars that blew restlessly like snowflakes, and glittered. And in that light she saw a great Angel with radiant wings.
It is possible that in the azure and shining halls where the just waited to be admitted through the gates of a Heaven which had been closed for so many eons, Cicero waited also, with all those whom he had loved. It is possible that he, too, heard the mighty Annunciation which shook the ramparts of heaven, and the golden pillars, and struck fire along all the corridors of the dark and gloomy earth:
“Hail, full of Grace! The Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women!”
AUTHORS NOTE
While literally hundreds of books, essays, manuscripts, etc., were studied before and during the writing of this book, especially in Rome and in Athens, only a few need to be mentioned here. The Holy Bible, particularly the Psalms of David and the prophesies of the Messias (because of Cicero’s interest in the matter), and Letters to-and-from Cicero and Atticus (Vatican Library, Archives, and translated by me on the spot), and the Orations of Cicero, particularly Pro Sex. Roscio, de Imperio Cn. Pompei, Pro Cluventio, In Catilinam, Pro Murena, Pro Caelio, available in full in Latin and excerpts in English, letters from Cicero to his family and friends (hundreds of sources, too many to be named), works of Cicero, himself, many named in the book and his Legibus and De Republica, Sallust, translated by J. C. Rolfe, Aristotle’s Politics, the plays of Aristophanes, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Cicero (Selected Works) translated by Michael Grant, The Essential Unity of All Religions, Bhagavan Das, Aristotle’s Ethics, Source Book in Ancient Philosophy by Charles M. Bakewell, the Catholic Encyclopedia, Phaedo of Plato, Cicero and the Roman Republic by F. R. Cowell, The World of Rome by Michael Grant, The Basic Works of Cicero, translated by Moses Hadas (particularly recommended), Plutarch’s Lives, Julius Caesar by W. Warde Fowler, Caesar by J. A. Froude, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, translated by Mary M. Innes, Life of Cicero by William Forsyth, and The Romans by R. H. Barrow.
A Biography of Taylor Caldwell
Taylor Caldwell was one of the most prolific and widely read American authors of the twentieth century. In a career that spanned five decades, she wrote forty novels, many of which were New York Times bestsellers.
Caldwell captivated readers with emotionally charged historical novels and family sagas such as Captains and the Kings, which sold 4.5 million copies and was made into a television miniseries in 1976. Her novels based on the lives of religious figures, Dear and Glorious Physician, a portrayal of the life of St. Luke, and Great Lion of God, a panoramic novel about the life and times of St. Paul, are among the bestselling religious novels of all time.
Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell in 1900 in Manchester, England, into a family of Scotch-Irish descent, she began attending an academically rigorous school at the age of four, studying Latin, French, history, and geography. At six, she won a national gold medal for her essay on novelist Charles Dickens. On weekends, she performed a long list of household chores and attended Sunday school and church twice a day. Caldwell often credited her Spartan childhood with making her a rugged individualist.
In 1907, Caldwell, her parents, and her younger brother immigrated to the United States, settling in Buffalo, New York, where she would live for most of her life. She started writing stories when she was eight years old and completed her first novel, The Romance of Atlantis, when she was twelve, although it was not published until 1975. Marriage at the age of eighteen to William Combs and the birth of her first child, Mary Margaret—Peggy—did not deter her from pursuing an education. While working as a stenographer and a court reporter to help support her family, she took college courses at night.
Upon receiving a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Buffalo in 1931, she divorced her husband and married Marcus Reback, her boss at the US Immigration Department office in Buffalo. Caldwell then dedicated herself to writing full time. Even as her family grew with the arrival of her second daughter, Judith, Caldwell’s unpublished manuscripts continued to pile up.
At the age of thirty-eight, she finally sold a novel, Dynasty of Death, to a major New York publisher. Convinced that a pre–World War I saga of two dynasties of munitions manufacturers would be better received if people thought it was written by a man, Maxwell Perkins, her editor at Scribner—who also discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway—advised her to use only part of her name—Taylor Caldwell—as her pen name. Dynasty of Death became a bestseller in 1938 and the saga continued with The Eagles Gather in 1940 and The Final Hour in 1944. Inevitably, a public stir ensued when people discovered Taylor Caldwell was a woman.
Over the next forty years, Caldwell often worked from midnight to early morning at her electric typewriter in her book-crammed study, producing a wide array of sagas (This Side of Innocence, Answer as a Man) and historical novels (Testimony of Two Men, Ceremony of the Innocent) that celebrated American values and passions.
She also produced novels set in the ancient world (A Pillar of Iron, Glory and the Lightning), dystopian fiction (The Devil’s Advocate, Your Sins and Mine), and spiritually themed novels (The Listener, No One Hears But Him, Dialogues with the Devil).
Apart from their across-the-board popularity with readers and their commercial success, which made Caldwell a wealthy woman, her long list of bestselling novels possessed common themes that were close to her heart: self-reliance and individualism, man’s struggle for justice, the government’s encroachment on personal freedoms, and the conflict between man’s desire for wealth and power and his need for love and family bonding.
The long hours spent at her typewriter did not keep Caldwell from enjoying life. She gave elegant parties at her grand house in Buffalo. One of her grandchildren recalls watching her hold the crowd in awe with her observations about life and politics. She embarked on annual worldwide cruises and was fond of a glass of good bourbon. Drina Fried recalls her grandmother confiding in her: “I vehemently believe that we should have as much fun as is possible in our dolorous life, if it does not injure ourselves or anyone else. The only thing is—be discreet. The world will forgive you anything but getting caught.”
Caldwell didn’t stop writing until she suffered a debilitating stroke at the age of eighty. Her last novel, Answer as a Man, was published in 1981 and hit the New York Times bestseller list before its official publication date. She died at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1985.
William Combs, Taylor Caldwell’s first husband and father to Peggy, aboard a naval ship, circa 1926.
A portrait of Caldwell at the start of her career in the late 1930s.
A portrait of Caldwell taken before Scribner’s publication of Melissa on June 21, 1948.
Caldwell at her desk in Palm Beach, Florida, in 1949. She spent many winter months at Whitehall, a resort hotel on the proper
ty of Henry Flagler’s former estate, which is now the Flagler Museum.
Caldwell’s second daughter, Judith Ann Reback, during time with her mother at Whitehall in the 1940s.
Caldwell receiving an award in Los Angeles, California, for A Pillar of Iron after its publication in 1965.
Caldwell with her daughters, Peggy Fried and Judith Ann Reback (Goodman), and Ted Goodman in 1969 on the MS Bergensfjord.
Caldwell at a cocktail party with her daughter, Peggy, and the hostess of a research world cruise on the SS President Wilson in 1970. (Ken Parke)
Caldwell with her granddaughter, Drina Fried, at her home in Buffalo, New York, winter 1975. Soula Angelou, her personal assistant, insisted on taking this rare family picture.
An invitation from 1975 to one of Caldwell’s many cocktail parties. She hosted at least two parties a year in Buffalo, New York, before she moved to Connecticut.
Caldwell with her fourth husband, Robert Prestie, who cared for her in the last six years of her life in Connecticut.
To read more about the life and work of Taylor Caldwell, please visit www.taylorcaldwell.com.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1965 by Taylor Caldwell
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4298-7
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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TAYLOR CALDWELL
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