A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

  Even up on the hill the smothering stench of the city reached them, following them like a miasma of pollution. Romans, though they had homes with latrines, flooded with channels of water, were often careless about using them, and though almost every street had convenient public latrines, also flooded with water, a man caught in an emergency used an alley. Gutters ran with filth; the law demanded that every householder and every business building and temple keep premises clean, and there were swarms of guards about to see this was done. But Romans exerted their independence and their considered right to urinate and defecate wherever the urge took them, especially at night.

  The air was heavy and ponderous and the stenches were more intolerable as the youths approached their house. Even Quintus, the accepting, said, “The city stinks like an abandoned pit full of dead bodies and offal. How I yearn for our island, where the wind is pure and sweet! Yet, I have heard you say that you love this city, Marcus.”

  It occurred to Marcus that it had been considerable time since he had even looked at his city, and he was more wretched. And he was sick with shame that his first terror for his country had lessened with the months.

  That night, as Marcus ate his frugal dinner with his grandfather and his brother, he forced himself to notice many things of which he had heretofore been obstinately blind. His mother and two slave girls ministered to the men at the table in the dining room, and Marcus saw that Helvia’s serene face was less richly colored and that there were two lines between her remarkable eyes and that though she was composed as always she appeared abstracted. There was but one oil lamp on the wooden table instead of the usual two—how long had it been since the other had been removed? Marcus looked at his father’s empty place. He was afraid to ask of his father’s health for fear of a deserved rebuke for his past indifference. Then he remembered that there had been no overseer in the hall. When had the man disappeared? The voices of slaves were fewer than he had remembered. Marcus glanced furtively at his grandfather and brother, and as they did not observe these things he concluded that this was now an ordinary occasion to them. He freshly despised himself.

  He studied his grandfather’s gloomy face. It had never been one of gayety, but now it was much older, thinner and more sombre. The old man appeared absorbed in wretched thoughts. How long had this been so? Even Quintus was subdued. I have seen nothing for I have seen only Livia, thought the youth. I have been pining away my life, and have neglected those dear to me. He wanted to ask with full desperation, and did not know how to begin. After a while, as he ate a tasteless dish of boiled meal sweetened sparely with honey, he tried to speak casually.

  “Grandfather, do you think this war will last much longer?”

  The grandfather laid down his spoon and regarded him with exasperation. “I spoke of that fully only last night, Marcus,” he said. “I spoke for an hour, by the clock. Were you not listening?” Quintus stared at his brother with wide eyes, and there was a twinkle of compassionate mockery in them.

  “You said nothing,” said the grandfather, “so I assumed, perhaps foolishly, that you were considering my words.”

  Marcus drew on his subtlety; he had never been devious and it was a struggle to be so now.

  “But affairs change day by day,” he said.

  The grandfather grunted, and wiped his beard. “Not so fast as that. The sheets of broadcast are fastened to the walls but once a week, and it was only yesterday that I read the latest and discussed it with you. Do you think Mercury flies to my side each night with fresh news of importance, for me alone?”

  He stared at his plate. “There are always rumors,” he said, grudgingly. “But I give no heed to rumors.” Marcus wished fervently that he did, so that at least he could come abreast of the news and discuss it intelligently.

  “It is but the beginning of disasters,” said the old man. “The tribunes and Consuls of the people, elected by them, are betraying them more and more to curry favor with the state. The day of the city-state is over, but fools will not admit that. We have grown too complex for city-states. We need but one large nation, with localities individually administered by elected neighbors individually accountable to their people, but all under one national government, which must be restrained, however, lest it become tyrannical, centralized power. The authority must be completely defined and never be permitted to expand, or we shall have despotism by a few.”

  “Does not Plato in his Republic agree?” asked Marcus, striving to be interested.

  The grandfather snorted. “Plato still thought of the republic as a city-state. I am speaking of a national state.”

  “An empire,” Marcus suggested.

  The grandfather was aghast. “Never an empire!” he exclaimed. “May the gods preserve Rome from ever becoming an empire! Rome is bad enough now, with her thieving and oppressive bureaucrats and politicians, her immorality and her degeneracy, the wantonness of her people, her Godlessness and her materialism, her ambition and her tyranny! She needs but the sword of empire to become utterly depraved. She needs but to crown a single man and call him ‘Imperator’ to sink her last virtues into the pit. Let one man rule a state and that state is doomed.”

  He shook his head mournfully. “But, we proceed to death. As men die, so do their nations. I have no hope for Rome, for I have no hope for men. Only a nation governed by God and His laws can survive the centuries. Once we were such a people, but are no longer.”

  Marcus was deeply depressed. He drank a little wine. The grandfather did not like subjects of conversation to be changed abruptly, so Marcus waited until the slaves brought in little earthen bowls of water for the fingers of the diners. Then the youth said, “How is my father tonight?”

  “He is not improved from yesterday.” The grandfather added sardonically and with considerable shrewdness, “But it is possible that you do not know how he fared yesterday, for you did not visit him last night.”

  Marcus colored. He did not know where to look, and he reproached himself with shame. His mind whirled with questions which he dared not ask. He looked about the dim bare room and it was full of shadows. His heart became sick with misery, and try as he would he could not banish the brilliant face of Livia which seemed to haunt every corner.

  He said with bitter honesty, “My mind has been engrossed, and I beg your forgiveness.”

  The grandfather considered this, and then said, “I have noticed for a long time that your thoughts were far away. Traveler, have you considered the plight of Rome, and your family? Or, have you not known of them?”

  Helvia appeared from behind the gray woolen curtain and looked at her men. She had been listening behind the curtain and she took compassion on Marcus. She inspected the lamp in that heavy silence of reproach, and shook her head a little. Then she fixed her eyes on her older son and said, “We must be even more frugal. The economic state of Rome is now desperate because of this war. This family is even more desperate. The value of our investments has declined almost to the point of vanishing. Our greatest investment was in the maritime shares. It is strange, but during periods of war the elements, themselves, are convulsed. Nearly half the ships in which we were invested have disappeared with their cargoes or have sunk or been seized by pirates and lost. Our other investments have declined in proportion, due to the war. Several of the mines in which we have invested have dwindled to almost nothing. Like many of our friends, we have been unfortunate, and it is not our fault. Your grandfather was judicious in investments, and had it not been for war we should have prospered exceedingly. He long ago assumed the burden of the moneys I brought to your father as a dowry, Marcus, for your father, many years ago, began to withdraw his interest.” For a moment her youthful and impassive face dimmed in color.

  “War,” she resumed, “brings not only calamity to nations but to individuals. Only those directly concerned with supplying instruments of wars and the necessities of soldiers are making fortunes in these days. They are even challenging the patricians with their new gold, and inv
ading the old families with marriages of their sons and daughters. It is necessity. One gives a name, the other gives money, and one cannot live without money no matter how exalted the name. But this dilutes noble blood and noble principles, for those of new riches have no heroic impulses but only appetites for the outward display of a nobility they do not possess. A pleb in rich raiment and with a chariot beautifully embossed, and with an entourage of slaves, is still a pleb. Though he has Senators at his command for his gold, he is still despicable. His urges are those of a beast, for a beast he is.”

  The grandfather nodded gravely. “When a beggar ascends to horseback and takes the rod he is far worse than a proud old patrician who at least has a history of honor and the ways of a gentleman and a tradition of nobility. I am of the middle-class. If I had a contest at law I should prefer that patricians judge me, and not an inflated man of the street, who has no frame of reference concerning honorable justice and the methods of honorable men.”

  He shook his head. “But there are the exigent even among the patricians and the noble, who lust for power. They know that power rests with numbers, and they now cultivate the plebs, the common people, of whom every government is justly afraid, for they have appetites and bellies, and like beasts they have no restraints and no self-control. So the patricians, if this war ever ends, will turn their attention to the plebs and use them to restore their fortunes and to seize power.”

  “Perhaps you are too despondent,’” said Marcus.

  “No, no! I am not. For, we have rejected and turned away from God.”

  Marcus could now understand the shadows which had lain over his family and to which he had been blind. It disturbed him that his mother, always so contained and so imperturbable, now felt despair. He could not remember a time but that Helvia was always judicious and a little indulgent with the grandfather.

  “I fear,” said Helvia, preparing to retire again, “that you will not go to Greece as soon as you expected, my Marcus. We are bare put to it to keep the four hundred thousand sesterces which maintain your father in the knighthood. That must not be used.”

  “We have sold half our slaves,” said the grandfather. “We could not do otherwise. It was my wish to state in my will that my own slaves be freed on my death, and it was in your father’s will. Now we cannot afford this noble luxury.”

  Marcus had never thought about money at all. He had known that his grandfather and his mother were penurious and excessively frugal. It had amused him. But it was one thing to be penurious and frugal when rich, and another to be so out of desperate necessity.

  “I shall be a soldier, a general,” said Quintus. “Then I shall be rich, my future assured. I do not intend to be poor.”

  Helvia, at the curtain, smiled fondly at her favorite. The grandfather rose after a brief invocation of the gods and left the room silently, still exuding reproach. Quintus yawned and said, “I must go to Archias, who loses more and more respect for Pilo, if he ever had any. Nor does he have respect for my mind.”

  “I shall go to my father,” said Marcus, hating himself.

  He went first to his little cubiculum, which was dark. He did not light the lamp. Oil, he had discovered, was precious these days. He knelt beside his narrow bed and prayed. He did not pray for money, for that was an insult to God. He prayed for wisdom and courage, but his heart was not in it. He was frightened. He thought, I am no longer a child. I am a man. Then he prayed for his family’s peace, and for his father’s health. He prayed that he be given the fortitude to endure whatever was to come. But he prayed without fervor. He suddenly remembered that his prayers had been lacking this virtue for some time. He had thought only of Livia, and all his prayers had been directed to Venus.

  He beat his head on his bed and muttered aloud in his agony, “Oh, if I could only forget her! Am I a child still, that I cannot control my emotions? Oh, that I were like Zeus, able to fall upon Livia, like Daiene, in a shower of gold!”

  His tears fell on his clasped hands. He knelt in sudden silence. Never would he forget Livia. That was impossible. However, he would try to live with his anguish and never again let it blind him to other matters. The Spartans held foxes against their bellies and permitted the animals to gnaw at them. That, however, did not prevent them from being excellent soldiers and conducting their lives normally. Was he less than a rude Spartan? He was a Roman. To be less was not to be a man.

  He then went to his father. His hatred for himself gave him strength and equanimity. He fixed a smile upon his face as he drew aside the curtain to Tullius’ cubiculum.

  Tullius had had his meagre supper and his wine, and lay exhausted by the effort of dining. Here a smoky lamp burned on the wall; his chest of small belongings stood against another wooden wall, and there was a chair. He turned his haggard head feebly to the curtain as Marcus entered; the rays of the lamp showed his gaunt and sunken face, his fallen eyes. But he smiled with radiant sweetness; his brow stood thick with large drops of feverish water, and his lips were broken and parched. To Marcus, it was as if he had been absent a long time only to return to discover someone he had left in health devoured by sickness.

  “My son,” said Tullius, and Marcus’ heart quickened again with hatred for himself for his father’s weak voice was the joyful one of one who greets a returning traveler. He sat on the chair. He could not apologize for his neglect, for that would hurt his father more. So he merely inquired about his health. Tullius smiled again, as if amused.

  “It is my malaria,” he said. “Do not fear, Marcus. I shall not die. I shall see you with these eyes when you are a great man, with your wife beside you and your children.”

  Marcus looked into those fever-stricken eyes sadly. And then he saw the spirit in them, powerful against the flesh. His misery lifted. If his father decreed life for himself then he would live. Feeling forgiven and reprieved, Marcus talked to him of his school.

  “We shall remove you soon,” said Tullius. “We must have still another tutor for you, as well as Archias. And you must begin to study law.”

  He talked serenely. He did not speak of the war or the economic situation of the family to Marcus. He held his son’s hand in his own hot and skeleton one and boasted of Marcus’ future, and the pride he would bring his family. The plight of his country was far from him. He had always lived in a very small world of dreams, sometimes jogged out of it by his father.

  “I regret,” said Tullius suddenly, in a voice hardly audible, “that I was ever born.”

  Marcus thought of what his mother had said of her husband when a youth: “He was like a young Hermes.” There was something spiritually fleet and airy about his father, something not to be touched by the gross world, something winged and remote and elusive.

  He is in love with God, thought Marcus, with profound intuition. He is sick for a home only he knows.

  The youth thought of the altar of the Unknown God. He had forgotten in these last months. He thought of the lilies he had placed on His altar, in honor of His Mother. He had also forgotten what Noë ben Joel had told him, of the Messias. And why? Because of a girl with autumn hair and eyes as blue as an autumn sky. Somewhere, at sometime, thought Marcus, I lost the way. Somewhere I lost the truth.

  But still, he could not understand his father’s desire to leave the world.

  He looked again at his father, who had fallen suddenly into a sleep that was like death, but he smiled in his sleep. Feeling heavy and cumbrous Marcus blew out the lamp, drew his father’s coverlet over the thin, linen-covered breast, and left the cubiculum. He was both thoughtful and despondent. He went to Archias with his books. Archias was cheerful.

  “The news is disheartening from the provinces,” he said, as if imparting good tidings. Marcus frowned.

  “Does that please you?” he asked.

  Archias chuckled. “Am I to grieve for Rome’s troubles?” he asked. “Oh, Rome will not collapse within her gates so soon or be overrun by the barbarian! She will have a splendor yet, but it will be like t
he phosphorescence that glows from a decaying corpse. Man is the most risible of creatures, though pathetic. Can you not be a spectator as I am, my Marcus? Look you, life is the most dangerous of experiences, the world the most dangerous of places, and man the most dangerous of animals. To contemplate it is the essence of wisdom; not to become involved in it is the wisest course of all.”

  “You have never become involved in it?”

  “Never,” said Archias, emphatically. “I stand apart. I love poetry and philosophy. But even these amuse me. They are man’s attempt to come to terms with what is hidden from him forever. Does the eagle or the lion wonder from whence he came or what his end is? Does the mouse contemplate and try to solve riddles? Does the flower wonder what lies beyond the sun? No, they are content to be, as I am. They accept. They fear neither life nor death. They are wiser than we.”

  “Once you said, Archias, that it is impossible to ask a question, by the very nature of things, if there is no answer. The very existence of a question poses a reply.”

  “I was engaging in a metaphysical exercise,” said Archias. “You must not always take me seriously, especially if my stomach is upset, as it must have been when I’ uttered that absurdity. But now to our lessons. What did that fool of a Pilo tell you today?”

  “He knows I am to be a lawyer. And so he remarked that laws must not be static or unchangeable, but must advance as man advances.”

  “What a sophistry!” said Archias. “Does man advance? No. His nature remains the one constant in life. He creates inventions; he raises larger and larger cities. He establishes governments. He exults in the phantasmagoria of change. He imagines that mere movement is advancement, and that activity in itself is mutability. If he runs, he believes, he will reach a higher place. But he cannot escape himself, however he shouts, however his environment changes. Therefore laws based on his fantasy of change are ridiculous. He will achieve novelty, but that novelty will not be wisdom, no matter how he glorifies himself, and boasts. He will exchange one opinion for another, forever; he will change his gods and call them by other names. But always, and forever, man will be the same. It is on that truth that law must be built and enforced.”