A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

“You speak in riddles, my husband. So Catilina remains because you are impotent and have no power to enforce his removal.”

  “I have no power.” He removed his toga and flung it upon a chair. The lamplight showed his haggard face.

  “I thought you were the great lawyer and orator of Rome, a Curule Aedile! It seems I am mistaken, when so small a thing is denied to you by Crassus!”

  He wanted to strike her, so great was his distraction. He clenched his teeth and sat down on the bed and removed his shoes. But she would not let him have peace.

  “I have been deluded. The object of my pride does not really exist. I have been defrauded. And my sister remains unavenged.”

  But Marcus thought not of Fabia but of Livia. He looked at the dagger which he had placed on the table. He said, though he spoke only to himself, “No, that is too easy, too unsatisfactory. The gods will not deny me.”

  “They have done so, tonight,” said Terentia. She heaved a sigh of deep self-pity. “So much for my dreams. So much for my hopes. I am married to a man of no consequence.”

  “True,” said Marcus, and blew out his lamp and left her fuming in the dark.

  But Marcus could not sleep. He lay in his bed, every muscle and tendon drawn and tight, his neck arched, his heart beating painfully and heavily, his thoughts leaping on each other’s back, to turn and leap again in a vast confusion, as if searching for words that would magically resolve chaos into order and make the world habitable again.

  He remembered the words of an old, nameless prophet of whom Noë ben Joel had told him: “They sleep not, except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall. For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the blood of violence.”

  But, he said to himself, it is I who cannot sleep, while those who eat the bread of wickedness and drink the blood of violence sleep sweetly and slumber like downy infants. He felt his mind probing out into the darkness, to discover sleepless men like himself, beset by the same terrible thoughts. Surely they were there, in this vast city, but he could not touch them with the windy fingers of his spirit. He turned on his side and saw the bluish gray dawn rimming his window. Did other men see it also with the same burned eyelids, and did they despair of their country as he despaired?

  How was he to live? There were those who knew the storm was lifting over the city but they resolutely turned their backs and drank their wine and pretended to the last living moment that all was well. There were others who refused to delude themselves, and died in the welter of a torn heart. And there were others who defied the storm and rushed to grapple with it, and were destroyed by it. Who was the wisest, and who had some faint opportunity to survive? The men who affected to believe there was no storm. Even if they did not survive they had enjoyed the last moments as their more sensitive fellows had not.

  From sheer glut of emotion which could not be expressed, Marcus’ mind, in self-defense, suddenly emptied. I refuse to feel any longer, he thought, and fell asleep.

  *Taken from Letter from Caesar to Cicero, after publication of De Republica.

  *From De Republica.

  PART FOUR

  The Hero

  Facto quod saepe maiores asperis bellis fecere, voveo dedoque me pro re publica! Quam deinde cui mandetis circumspicite; name talem honorem bonus nemo volet, cum fortinae et maris et belli ab aliis acti ratio reddunda aut turpiter moriundum sit. Tantum modo in animus habetote non me ob scelus aut avaritiam caesum, sed volentem pro maxumis benificiis animam dono dedisse. Per vos, Quirites, et gloriam maiorum, tolerate advorsa et consulite rei publicae! Multa cura summo imperio inest, multi ingentes labores, quos nequiquam abnuitis et pacis opulentiam quaeritis, cum omnes provinciae, regna, maria, terraeque aspera aut fessa bellis sint.

  —Part of speech of GAIUS COTTA

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  For a considerable period Marcus Tullius Cicero enjoyed comparative tranquillity, which at times made him uneasy. He wrote to Atticus, “Am I numb or resigned? Am I growing old? Or have I reached the ultimate wisdom which finds no battle worth fighting? Consider me, dear friend, as one who does not look too closely at anything or anyone any longer. I have entered into the period of what some consider the golden middle years, the years that fly and leave no trace and decline into abnegation, which is the ante-room to death.”

  As Julius had told him, he did not encounter Catilina, who, though in his fortieth year, remained as beautiful as a statue still, even if it was whispered that he drank heavily, became incoherent and blasphemous, and rarely appeared in court. He had deputies who labored in his name, claiming that Catilina had briefed them in the night. This was not true, for the nights were spent in restless debauchery. If his friends were present he upbraided them for imagined slights and for ignoring him. There were times when he spoke mysteriously, and was elated. Often, at dawn, he was found staggering on the streets with noisy companions who never appeared in the company of other patricians and never hoped to enter any house but Catilina’s.

  A madman and a swine, Marcus would think when news of Catilina came to his ears. Marcus began to think that Crassus and Julius Caesar and Pompey had rid themselves of a dangerous man by giving him power he was unable to exercise; he congratulated them in his mind for their cleverness. The gods were destroying, as always, those they had made mad. Once Marcus would have suspected this placidity which surrounded him, for he knew that the gods, being malicious, often lulled a man to sleep so that he was not aware, until too late, that he had been stricken mortally. I had hoped to be a hero of my country, he would think. But the age of heroes seemed to have passed. Sometimes the insidious thought came to Marcus that nothing would ever stir again in the Republic which would capture imagination, whether for good or evil. Everything conspired, it appeared, to dull perception, to lull the spirit, to make every man say, “All is peaceful, all is prosperous, all is contained.” Where was a man, these days, like Scipio Africanus, a man with style and color and fire? Romans, modern Romans, would look on such with suspicion and disfavor. Romans did not want to be excited by oratory and brilliance. They wanted their banks, their pleasures, their families, their excursions, their mean little gratifications. They wanted destiny no longer. They wanted no rainbows in their skies, no storms, no disturbances of the status quo. Industrious and materialistic, they preferred the theatres and the circuses and their sports, their couches and their fat families.

  Marcus, insensibly, was caught in this tide of complaency; he felt its pull. He began to believe that it was ridiculous for any man to try to awaken the soul of Rome, and he wondered whether it would be kind anyway, or to what men should be awakened. Crassus pursued a middle way. He attracted no overt attention, nor did the Senate or the tribunes. An actor was more celebrated than Crassus. The sun was peaceful on Rome and the streets were busy and there was much speculation and more and more news of prosperity. The world gave the impression of having reached a fixed place of calm, and all the battles were forgotten. There was no sign of impressive evil, nothing that would inspire indignation or resistance. “A fine age in which to live,” said many veterans of many holocausts, and they spoke with thanksgiving. “We are stable. Let us pursue the joys of life in this Umbrian atmosphere.”

  “I leave for Jerusalem soon,” said Noë ben Joel to his friend. Noë was bald now, and he was very rich, for his comedies were extremely popular. “I do not like what I feel. Rome is not for a middle-aged man who has nightmares, and I have them.”

  “Do not be absurd,” said Marcus, uneasily.

  “I leave for Jerusalem,” repeated Noë, and looked at his friend oddly. “A Jew knows when the knives are loose in the scabbards, and he can smell thunder before the first cloud appears. I beg of you to retire to Arpinum.”

  “So you advised me some years ago. Yet you observe that I live in peace.”

  Or stultification, thought Noë. A change had come over Marcus, as if something in him was either exhausted or in abeyance. Worse, perhaps he had left the fig
ht, for he did not see the lightnings in the east. He had become plumper, his long cheeks had filled out, his eyes had lost their changeful fire and now had an expression of stillness.

  “I have heard much discussion of you in public, concerning that vivid young politician, Publius Clodius, surnamed Pulcher,” said Noë, looking aside in delicacy. “And—and this is probably gossip, his sister Clodia. Alas! How scandalous are tongues!”

  When he looked up mildly he saw that Marcus’ face had become uncomfortably red. “Oh, Publius,” he answered with an air of carelessness. “One of those eager young men now in politics, foaming like wine that has gone bad, and resounding like a struck drum, all noise and air. I deplore his zeal. He speaks of ‘different times, different laws, to meet our changing problems.’ He does not seem to realize that man never changes and that his problems are always the same though he gives them new names. Publius thinks that everything is new, new, and must be attacked in a bold way, and that modern man, himself, is unique, whereas any ripened man can tell him that what he thinks is ‘new’ is as old as death, and as you have once quoted yourself, Noë, ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ Increasing years will quiet Publius’ enthusiasms and his present conviction that man has suddenly embarked on a pristine experience in living, and the past is dead.”

  “Ah,” said Noë, still watching his friend covertly, and remembering the gossip concerning the beautiful Clodia and Marcus. “Do you believe the rumor that Clodius, when prosecuting Catilina for extortion during his term of office, was bribed to acquit him?”

  Marcus looked aside; he appeared to have been attacked by a slight pain. “I do not believe Clodius accepted a bribe, for all the rumors. He may have been convinced that Catilina was innocent. Catilina endlessly declaims that he is a friend of the common man; Clodius like many young and jejune men, is convinced that the common man, the man in the streets, possesses a mysterious sanctity, though how he arrives at that conclusion is not to be understood. So it is very probable that Catilina’s wily espousal of the common man struck a large gong of sympathy in Clodius, who therefore not only forgave him his sin of extortion but denied it ever existed. Nevertheless, I like the young man. He amuses me and saddens me at the same time with his youth, and his belief that he possesses all wisdom, a disease of his age.”

  Noë noticed that Marcus did not speak of Clodia, the notorious and lovely sister of Clodius. Noë did not condemn Marcus; in reality, he hoped that Marcus was enjoying life to some extent with Clodia, who was not only beguiling but was noted for her wit and sparkle. As Noë was a great and avid gossip, he knew almost everything that transpired in Rome, mostly scandalous. He knew that Marcus and Terentia fought angrily, that Terentia was not only a shrewd woman insofar as money and investments were concerned, but that she was greedily ambitious and wanted fame in Rome as the wife of a famous and potent man. Noë, from gossip, had been informed that Marcus and Terentia slept in different chambers, that Marcus had once slapped his wife’s face before slaves, that once she had hurled a platter of saucy pasta at his head with disastrous results, notably a black eye and a cut on Marcus’ face and a badly puffed nose, that Marcus had asked for a divorce which Terentia had refused, and that they now lived, more or less, as formal strangers, except when Terentia was inspired to angry diatribes concerning inconsequential matters, such as Clodia. You are a virtuous husband, Noë, he complimented himself. And you have had many opportunities, but actresses do not always bathe often and they are careless with cosmetics. Moreover, they are expensive and my dear wife keeps all my books.

  Marcus said, “But you will return from Jerusalem?”

  “No. Not this time. I shall write you daily; perhaps you will join me for a while. Now that my children are of an age to marry I believe they should know their ancient traditions. They have acquired cosmopolitan ways in Rome; these should be balanced by deeper matters.” Noë began to laugh. “I still cannot believe that our dear, greedy, posturing Roscius has become an Essene in the caves of Judea! When God touches a man, however improbable that man is for the choosing, He lights a fire in him. So Roscius, to escape identification and notoriety, has assumed the name of Simeon, and says, in all seriousness, that he will not die until he has seen the face of the Messias with his own eyes. That is why he often emerges from the caves—where he studies and prays with his fellow Essenes—and haunts the Temple in the city, staring at the face of all babes who are brought before the altar. Poor Roscius.”

  “I should have thought it of anyone but Roscius,” said Marcus, smiling with regret that never again would he see that mobile face, those magnificent eyes, and hear that loud and musical voice. His own face changed, and he said, “Do not tell me, I implore you, that I shall never see you again, Noë. We were children together, and youths, and young men, and we are middle-aged now. You are part of my life.”

  “I tell you, I can no longer remain in Rome. I am afraid,” said Noë.

  “Do not leave too soon,” said Marcus, and it came to him that each year saw a diminishing, through death or exile or change of residence, of the substance of his own life. “And when you go, do not come for a last embrace. I do not wish to know the day.”

  So Noë did not tell him that he was leaving quietly the day after tomorrow. When he embraced his friend on his departure he could hardly refrain from weeping openly. “You have my prayers,” he said, scarcely able to speak. Again Marcus’ face changed, and he looked before him, musingly.

  “It is said that when a man grows older he begins to think more of God,” he said, as if to himself. “But it is not true. I was afire with the love of God when I was a youth and a young man. Now I rarely think of Him, and each year the thought occurs to me less and less.”

  “The world intervenes. We are exhausted with our efforts merely to live,” said Noë. But Marcus did not hear him. “In youth,” Noë continued, “we have energy for the whole world, and all that is in it and all that is without. A man should be able to retire from the turmoil when he is no more than thirty-five, so that he may devote his mind and his soul to God before he has forgotten Him. But that is impossible for most men.”

  Marcus looked at him with faintly frowning eyes, as if he had heard a phrase most important to him but now he could not comprehend it, remember where he first had heard it, or who had said it. When Noë departed Marcus still sat in his garden this hot summer evening, and tried to remember. Not an echo rose in him. He began to think of the young and lovely Clodia, and he smiled.

  Helvia, that prudent and stable woman, had never interfered in the affairs of the household since. Marcus had married. She approved of Terentia’s thrift and genius with money and investments; she approved of her old Roman convictions, and her piety which was increasing as she grew older. (Terentia was always in the temples, when she was not in the banks and the brokers’ offices.) She approved of her as a diligent mother and scrupulous wife and a deft manager of household affairs. But she sighed over Terentia’s fits of violent temper, growing more frequent lately, the nagging with which she afflicted Marcus over the most trivial matters, and her intolerance of everyone who did not share her narrow convictions. Helvia regretted Clodia, but she understood. She did not, however, know if she were relieved or not that Marcus appeared more serene these days and that things did not ruffle him as once they did. We all grow old, Helvia would think, sighing. It is very unfortunate that we also grow more attuned to the world, and quarrel with it less.

  Marcus sat in the sunset garden after Noë had departed. He said to himself, “Am I happy or not? Am I less interested in life, or have I just accepted it at last? I am in harbor. Is that desirable or not? I know I cannot change the world, and I know that Rome is lost. Will it help if I tear myself into shreds? No. I pray that each day will not be stormier than yesterday.” It was only when Catilina’s face rose before him that he felt a sharp spasm in his heart and heard an echo of his old hatred. But Catilina was competently doing himself to death with debauchery. He was no longer Praetor. br />
  But I, myself, shall soon be Praetor, Marcus thought. He smiled pleasantly, though with no excitement. He thought of Clodia, and he smiled again and rose to prepare himself to dine at her house where there was always laughter and wit and intelligent companions and music. It was rumored that she had recently taken one Marcus Antonius, a very young youth, as one of her lovers, but Marcus did not believe it.

  Walking slowly and with leisure, Marcus entered his fine house, to which he had added more rooms and more luxury and more ornamentation. He encountered, not without a wince or two, his father apparently awaiting him in the atrium. There were days when he forgot that his father even existed, and he was always startled to see his thin shadow on the marble walls or hear his light and timid voice.

  Tullius’ hair was white, his thin face fallen and bleached, his figure gaunt and his gait uncertain, as if his feet hardly felt the earth. Only his large brown eyes remained alive, and now they were eloquent.

  He began to speak rapidly and in stumbling accents, as if he felt that if he did not catch Marcus’ attention immediately Marcus would not hear him or see him. He said, “My dear son, I must talk with you; it is most necessary.”

  Marcus frowned slightly. He could not control his impatience, his desire to shut his father out of his awareness. He said, “I am late. I am to dine—”

  “I know. You are always late, Marcus. You are always dining. You always have appointments.” The old man’s face was broken with sadness, and he bent his head. “There is something very wrong, Marcus. I feel I must speak to you before it is too late.”

  “Well?” said Marcus, with resignation. The hall’s white walls and floor were sparkling with late sunshine, and the fountain in the center glittered and sang and caged birds sang sweetly in the corners.

  “We have all lost you, even your daughter, Tullia,” said Tullius with humility.

  “I do not know what you mean, my father,” said Marcus, exasperated. He looked at the water clock. He must bathe, he must array himself, and it was already late. “Can we not continue when I return?”