A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

  Scaevola rocked his fat buttocks with mirth on his chair and slapped the table in an ecstasy of laughter. “Humanity? The Senate? My dear, you are mad! You appeal to a government for clemency, the very government which is a destroyer by nature? The government, you remember, which needs money—the money of your client? You are appealing to a lion to release a gazelle, for which it has an overpowering appetite, being eternally hungry. No, no, my downy-bearded one. You must seek another passage than that of appealing to the lion.”

  “What?” asked Marcus in despair. “I have searched.”

  “I look upon your case,” said Scaevola, “as only an exercise, for you. I have not the slightest hope that you will win clemency for your client. Let us be objective. Romans are natural actors. I hope you will move them with your eloquence, for all you are but a fledgling. I hope they will listen to you seriously. I hope they will applaud you. But they will not relinquish that power they have just discovered through their bureaucrats—the government needs money. Or, am I growing monotonous in my reminder?”

  “‘Only an exercise’ for me?” asked Marcus, flushing. His eyes became cold and gray, flecked with amber.

  “Only,” said Scaevola. “I look upon your pleading tomorrow as a critic regards a new actor.”

  “You have said I must not permit myself an ‘if,’ Master,” said Marcus.

  “I am thinking of you only. You will be a success if you move your audience to tears. If you do not, then you are no real pleader. The fate of your client is secondary, for you cannot win for him.”

  “What is the new passage you mentioned, then?”

  Scaevola shook his head. “There is none. Unless your divinity, Pallas Athene, can grant you a miracle.”

  “Power and the law are not synonymous,” said Marcus.

  Scaevola regarded him with mock admiration. “You must tell that to the Senate,” he said. “They have never been presented with such a unique argument before.”

  “Where power is exercised in an unlimited fashion, there is no law,” said Marcus, stubbornly.

  “True. But the Senate wants power. Does not every government? Will you deprive it of its life’s blood? My metaphorical lion, my dear, represents all governments.”

  “I shall rescue my gazelle,” said Marcus.

  Scaevola burst into fresh laughter, and wiped genuine tears of mirth from his fat and oily cheeks. “Bravo,” he said. “Brave words. But they never moved a lion.”

  Marcus went into Scaevola’s library again and sought, again, for an avenue of justice for his client. He found none. At noon, he went to the temple of. Athene, and prayed. He paused at the altar of the Unknown God, and suddenly knelt before it. “Surely, You are justice,” he whispered. “Surely, You will not abandon Your children. Have You not told it to Your prophets?”

  It was his first case of single pleading. His heart was afire with anger and burned for righteousness and honor and just law.

  He returned to the house of Scaevola. Rich litters before the door were no novelty to Marcus, who saw them regularly. But when the curtains parted and Noë ben Joel emerged with a white and desperate face, the matter was quite different. Marcus ran to him and held out his hand. Noë took it. He tried to speak. Then he burst into tears and leaned his head on Marcus’ shoulder. He caught his breath while Marcus, astounded and fearful, held him. “My father,” he groaned.

  A few months before, in the spring of the year, Joel ben Solomon had summoned his son, Noë, and had said, firmly, “I gave your sisters large dowries, for God, blessed be His Name, did not see fit to endow them with the countenances of angels or the souls of a Rachel. Who are we to dispute His will or question His judgments? Nevertheless, the dowries, and the loss of many of my investments in these wars, have depleted my coffers. As my only son, I had thought to leave you a vast fortune. It is true that I am not a poor man, but my conscience now forbids me to continue to fatten your purse in order that you may produce plays and pay actors. I had hoped,” said the elderly man, sighing, “that you would join me in my counting houses and in my offices of investments. You did not, exclaiming bitterly that gold meant nothing to you, that you were a man above such a gross pursuit.

  “Had your plays brought you a profit I might have been somewhat reconciled. Alas, they did not. And this is very strange, for during wars a people seek entertainment. I have heard that the circuses do not lack audiences—”

  “They are free. The government provides them,” said Noë, with an ugly premonition coming to lie like lead on his heart.

  His father closed his eyes for a moment, then resumed as if he had not been interrupted. “Your plays must be marvelously dull. I am no critic. I have never attended a play. But I have read those you have left in this house—”

  “They were written only by Sophocles and Aristophanes,” said Noë, with a wave of his large but delicate hand, “and a number of other notable Grecian artists.”

  “Marvelously dull,” said Joel, smoothing his beard wearily. “Romans have more intelligence than I believed, if they did not patronize your productions of these plays.”

  “The plays are art,” said Noë. “I must sadly admit that the mobs prefer bloody spectacles in the circus, and gladiators and wrestlers, and boxers and dancers, particularly those of more depraved character.”

  His father shuddered. “Art or not, they have brought you no sustenance, but my coffers have dwindled. I had believed that in these degenerate days in Rome it was necessary for a young man to have his will for a time, though it was not so in my day. In my day—”

  Noë listened dutifully, his eyes glazing with boredom. He had heard about his father’s day all his life.

  “I have apparently offended the God of my fathers,” said Joel. Noë judged that his father was approaching the climax of his story and shook himself awake. Joel always concluded his lamentations with that phrase. Then Noë’s heart sank. His father’s eye was cold and bright and was fixed on him. He was going to dismiss his son after the conclusion of his lamentation as usual.

  “Therefore,” said Joel, “I have arranged a marriage for you with the daughter of Ezra ben Samuel. The dowry—”

  “She resembles a camel!” cried Noë, in horror. “She is older than I! Not even her dowry could persuade any man to marry her!”

  “She is but twenty-four, which is not elderly,” said Joel. “A camel? The maiden is no Judith or Bathsheba, but she does not offend the eye, though of course,” the old man added ironically, “as I am not an artist and but a gross man of business I am no judge. She is a gentle daughter of Israel, of much virtue, and is not a good wife above rubies? She has been taught well by her mother—”

  “A camel,” said Noë, desperately.

  “Speak not so,” said his father with unusual sharpness. “Her nose could be more shapely, resembling your mother’s, and her eyes could be larger, resembling your mother’s, but she is of a fine complexion and possesses excellent teeth—”

  “A man does not take a wife for her teeth, as if he were purchasing a horse,” said Noë, refusing to believe in this calamity. “She is also fat.”

  Joel said, “It seems to me, though I may be wrong—and correct me if I am—that you are not purchasing a wife. Leah is purchasing a husband. You.”

  “No,” said Noë.

  “Yes,” said Joel.

  Noë reflected. He saw his father’s firmness. He saw how steady was the knotted hand that stroked the beard. If he did not agree to this marriage to this camel, there would be no more purses. If he did marry Leah bas Ezra he would have her dowry. The maiden had an agreeable nature, soft and pliant, and would be devoted to the man who would clasp her hand under the canopy.

  “I,” said Joel, “have also arranged with Ezra ben Samuel that his daughter’s dowry be soundly invested. It is true that foreign investments at this time are disastrous, and therefore I have advised Ezra ben Samuel to buy property in Rome for Leah, and to invest in gold. The income from all this will provide a pleasant
house for you and Leah and two or three servants, and your future sons.”

  I am undone, thought Noë, and wanted to tear his hair and heap ashes upon it. However, a little more reflection caused him to reconsider. The income would be very regular, unlike his father’s purses, weighty though they were. He could still produce his plays and pray that Romans be lured by pure art.

  However, Noë appealed to his mother whom he could always influence. But it was most apparent that she and Joel had discussed this matter thoroughly before. So she merely sighed and spoke of the will of God, and remarked that Noë was twenty-three and long past the age of usual marriage. “The girl is not uncomely,” she urged. “Do you have another choice?”

  Noë took his woes to his friend, Marcus, who was heartless enough to laugh.

  “It is easy for you, who are a Roman, to howl with mirth,” said Noë, bitterly. “For, though your marriages are arranged, you have other consolations if your wife displeases you. It is not so with Jews.”

  “You have regaled me with some very notable stories from your holy books,” said Marcus. “Was there not David, and Solomon, to mention but two? And what of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

  “Nevertheless, it is expected that Jewish husbands be virtuous,” said Noë. “Or at least those Jews who move in the immaculate company of my parents—and Ezra ben Samuel.”

  Marcus was a guest at the wedding. He thought it sumptuous, and he also thought that Noë had done his bride injustice. Leah was no seductress, and she was too plump even for a voluptuous taste. She was also short in stature. But she had pink cheeks, a charming smile, demure eyes, and gentle manners. She also had a fat dowry, even by Roman standards. These were virtues not to be despised.

  Noë apparently came to this conclusion also, for Marcus did not see him for two months. When Noë arrived at the Cicero house one evening Marcus noted that he was less lean than before and had a somewhat contented expression. He talked of a new play with animation. He had also procured the services of a handsome prostitute to act in his play, which he had composed himself. “A pig of a woman,” he said, happily, “but of such allure! I am also considering her for Elektra. She is rich, herself, and was once the mistress of a Senator.”

  Marcus had not seen Noë until this late summer day, when he had fallen, weeping, into his friend’s arms, speaking of his father, Joel ben Solomon.

  Noë sat, his face streaming with tears, in the company of Scaevola and Marcus, and told his story.

  A number of Senators, whom he had named, and who had been of Marius’ party and therefore had not had to flee with Sulla to the East, had done much business with Joel in the past before the wars. They had invested heavily in stocks which he had recommended, and had gone into debt to him. He kept the records in his counting houses, in which he employed clerks of the best reputation. Had the wars not interfered the Senators’ investments would not only have been safe, but they would have been purchased at last in full, and the debt to Joel would have been paid. However, in common with all Romans of property, the Senators were unfortunate in their investments, most of which had been in ships and in mines and properties. Some of the investments included money invested in manufactories supplying the government with war materials.

  As the wars continued, the government paid less and less to the manufacturers, and even threatened, when they protested, to confiscate their property during the emergency. So the Senators lost money here also.

  Too, much of their land, including vineyards, had suffered during the wars and was lying fallow, awaiting the day of peace. Only now were they beginning to yield again.

  Cinna, that dangerous man, had reduced debts, it was true. But that reduction was a two-edged sword. While it measurably reduced what a man owed it also reduced the sums due him from his debtors. So the new law was of no tremendous help to the Senators, who found themselves not only in debt to bankers and brokers like Joel ben Solomon, but in debt to many others because of their profligacy which had not been prudently restrained during the wars. Many of them, of former great fortune, had lived like potentates in their Roman houses. Among them were clients of Joel ben Solomon.

  The Senators considered that the debts they owed to Joel were the less onerous, for he did not press for payment, understanding their predicament. However, the debts, despite the reductions by Cinna’s law, were still formidable. So the Senators concocted a vile plot: They announced that Joel had not delivered to them the stocks for which they had fully paid, but was asserting that they had paid but a fraction! With one blow, then, they not only schemed to be rid of their debts to him, but to seize his property and all the money he owned—thus enriching themselves—and throw him into prison for embezzlement.

  He had been taken but that morning. Upon his seizure he had fainted and had been carried roughly away. His wife and his family were in despair. The daughters and their husbands consulted together, and the fathers of the husbands, to consider how much money they could bring together to free their father from the accusations; perhaps that would satisfy the Senators if the sum were large enough. Several of the young husbands of Joel’s daughters had then gone pleadingly to the Senators, offering a magnificent sum “in payment in full.” But the Senators had laughed at them. They wished to appear virtuous in the eyes of their clients. Therefore, Joel must be punished.

  While Scaevola listened like a huge fat toad in his chair, keeping his ear keenly on Noë’s broken words, he studied Marcus’ face, which was frozen in white horror and incredulity. So, thought Scaevola, this will at last teach this young donkey—for whom I have an unaccountable affection—that what I have been relating to him is the truth.

  After Noë had concluded, and had buried his face in his hands, Marcus stammered, “It is not possible! Does your father not have lawyers of his own, Noë?”

  “No,” said the unfortunate son. “He is honest. He has always proclaimed that an honest man needed no lawyer. He was safe from all injustices.”

  “Hah!” exclaimed Scaevola. “Joel ben Solomon, of course, is a prodigious fool. You are serious, Noë? He has no lawyers? No!”

  He could not believe this folly. Noë was compelled to repeat the truth over and over. Then Scaevola threw himself back violently in his chair and shook his head like a dazed gladiator, unable to speak for a moment.

  Marcus said, “But your father has his records, has he not, Noë?”

  “All of them,” said Noël in an exhausted voice. “We offered them to the Senators for their own perusal.”

  Scaevola came furiously back to life and struck the table with the flat of his hand so that it roared like a drum. The old man leaned toward Marcus and shouted, “Imbecile! Of what use are records presented to tribunes, Consuls or Senators if the government is determined to rob and destroy a man who has displeased them, or who possesses what they want? Oh, gods,” he groaned, “have I truly wasted all these years on such a stone-assed idiot as this Marcus Tullius Cicero! Those years of my old age!” He clenched his fists and shook them in the air and cursed himself for his stupidity.

  Noë, during this rich flow of imprecations, blinked emptily at Scaevola, and then at Marcus. The noble pontifex maximus finally came to himself. He glared at Noë. “I assume that your father is also being accused of defaulting on his just taxes?”

  “He is. I had forgotten that in the larger enormity,” said Noë, with a hopeless expression.

  Scaevola nodded with a wise and bitter smile. “That was added further to proclaim the Senators’ virtue. They were also the victims of what they call necessary taxes. But, were they not patriotic, did they not love their country and respect her laws? Thrice thousand times they did! They paid their taxes to the last penny. They will have forged records to prove it, and where is the tax-gatherer who will dare dispute their assertions? He knows he would not be safe from poison or more unpleasant means of assassination or reprisal. It is understood by all reasonable men that the powerful do not pay taxes in the fashion of helpless citizens.” Scaevola looked
at Marcus, “You will remember your own client tomorrow, my Marcus, when you plead his case before these selfsame Senators, and ask for their clemency. For, are they not honorable Romans of much virtue? Are not taxes the lifeblood of a government? He who defrauds his government, you will hear tomorrow, defrauds every citizen of Rome who has met his just obligations!”

  “Let us think, now, of Joel ben Solomon,” pleaded Marcus. “Surely, Master, this injustice cannot be allowed to take place. Surely, we have law.”

  Scaevola implored Noë for condemnation of this ape-brained idiot. “Listen to him,” he urged. “He speaks of law! Is there anything more contemptible in these days? In all these years he has sat at this table, in all the years he has accompanied me to the Senate and the courts, he has heard, with those brazen ears of his, that there is no law save that which is graciously vouchsafed by tyrants—for a price. Long before his grandfather’s grandfather was born, I have attempted to teach him, Rome was already corrupt and depraved. The Republic had died of fatness and riches and swollen belly. It had died because the people did not insist that law be honored, and justice be observed and the Constitution upheld. Yet, he still speaks of law, in face of what Aristotle has said concerning Republics—that they decline into democracies and degenerate into despotisms. He has had all history at his hand, and he has been as blind as stone and as deaf as mud.”

  Marcus said with all the stern quietness he could bring to his voice, “Nevertheless, the laws are still on the books. My grandfather, of whom I have told you, Master, believed that vigorous and honorable men could still restore them, and the grandeur of Roman justice. How else can I live if I did not believe that, also? If men ignore law, it is because the venal and the contemptible despise it and circumvent it, and ridicule it, and profit by it. Men may throw filth on the white garments of Justice, but they cannot overthrow her or move her from her place.”

  “Oh, offal!” screamed Scaevola, almost beside himself. “They have thrown filth on her for nearly two hundred years, and have overthrown her and have moved her from her place! Will you not, in the name of all that is sane, recognize the great truth that confronts you, you pitiable creature? You cannot live, you declare, if this truth is not false. Then drown yourself. Fall on that sword with which you defeated Catilina five years ago. Borrow your grandfather’s rusty dagger and thrust it into your vitals. This is no world for you, Marcus!”