A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

  “No!” exclaimed Antonius. “It is not possible to believe this even of Catilina!”

  “You must believe it,” said Crassus, sternly. “For it is true. I have told you, Antonius, that we were deluded that he was no longer a threat to Rome, or at least that he was not so great a threat as we now know he is, thanks to you. Cicero, the famed and honorable, the beloved of Rome, must know the whole plot against him and Rome. He will arouse the people, even the most apathetic, not only to indignation but to horror and vengeance, and the crushing of the danger that threatens all of us. They have heard rumors of Catilina and his horrific multitudes for a long time; apprehension has stirred them often. But not enough! They have heard of the disaffection of Etruria, and Manlius, that rude old soldier. They have heard of the lust of the criminals, and the treason of many of the patricians. All this has, from time to time, swept over their consciousness like a vague black wind. But not enough! Now the hour has come to expose Catilina for what he is, and Cicero is the only man who can do so.”

  *As reported by the historian Sallust.

  † From a speech Catilina gave before the Senate.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Cicero, Antonius, Caesar, Crassus, Pompey, and Clodius sat in Cicero’s cold library, long after midnight. At his brother’s side stood the soldier, Quintus, whom Cicero had hastily summoned. Cicero had wrapped a crimson wool gown over his night clothing, a plain gown and strapped only with leather. His feet were covered by fur-lined boots. He looked at his visitors for a long time, in total silence, after Antonius had finished speaking, and after Caesar and Crassus had made their own ominous comments.

  Antonius, the patrician, loved Cicero for all he was a “new man” of no distinguished family, except for the Helvii on his mother’s side—Cicero of the breed held in contempt by the aristocrats, the breed of merchants, manufacturers, professional men, shopkeepers, stockbrokers and traders, and rich farmers. Antonius greatly admired Cicero, the famous lawyer and orator and now Consul of Rome, but he had rarely invited Cicero to his house. Did not one owe something to one’s name? But now, as the distracted Antonius studied Cicero he had to admit to himself, with some vague wonder, that Cicero had a patrician’s nobility and aloofness. The thick and waving brown hair was heavily interwoven with gray; the slender face was locked and grim; the thin long hands lay clasped almost lightly on his knee. The changeful eyes studied one man after another, slowly, and then came to rest on Antonius. But still he did not speak. He was thinking, and his thoughts were bitter. His eyes began to glow with a cold yellow. At last he spoke, and only to Antonius:

  “I am Consul of Rome, Antonius, and you are my colleague. We are considered the mightiest men of our country. We are wrong! Crassus and Caesar are the mightiest, the most powerful. Beside them we are infants in the presence of ruthless Titans! You have spoken in fear and horror of Catilina. Your fear and horror are justified. But, who made Catilina such a terrible threat against Rome? These men who sit beside you now.”

  Now he looked at Caesar and said, “The tiger who roamed your garden is now within your house, Julius.” Again he turned to Antonius, who was bewildered and shocked at his words. “Antonius, these men, our friends as they claim, were always in a conspiracy against our country in the pursuit of their private power. Look upon their faces! They are dark with scorn and anger against me. But they know I speak the truth. They did not come with you tonight because they fear for their country, or for me. They came because they now fear for themselves; the madman they encouraged for their own purposes is about to destroy them as well as the government, the city, and ourselves. They thought him on their chain; he has broken free; he ranges and roams the streets and his scarlet shadow falls on every wall.

  “Iniquitous and immoral men!” Cicero’s eyes blazed upon the others. “To this you have brought Rome, that Catilina with his malefactors, gladiators, perverts and mobs, freedmen, criminals, thieves, murderers, mercenaries and malcontents is now stronger than you! Rome never faced so desperate an hour before. I have called Catilina a traitor. But you are traitors also, to all that established our nation. You are traitors to principle and honor, to good will and valor, to courage and virtue. If Catilina now stands before the bar of Rome as her enemy, you stand with him also.”

  Antonius regarded him with fresh horror and affright. “Poor Antonius,” said Cicero. “It may be that your fortitude has saved Rome—for a little while. No nation ever withdrew fully from this abyss, no, not in all the history of the world.”

  He looked at Pompey, who had saved his life before, and saw the broad and quiet face, and for an instant his own softened. Then it darkened again. “Have you nothing to say, you, mighty Crassus, dictator of Rome, you, powerful Caesar, you, plotting Clodius?”

  “We listen to you because we are patient and tolerant, Marcus,” said Julius, who was now smiling faintly. “You were always intemperate about ‘conspiracies.’ I say again that we know nothing about ‘conspiracies’ except the one revealed to us by Antonius and one we only dimly suspected existed but which we did not credit as a true menace. But we discounted the power of Catilina, whom we have not seen for a long time, and whom we despise as you despise him. Let us be done with foolish recriminations and accusations. We must work together to halt Catilina.”

  “Liar,” said Cicero. “You were always a liar, Julius.”

  “Your personal opinions, noble Cicero, concerning Caesar are irrelevant,” said Crassus. “I, dictator of Rome, came to you tonight—and I am young no longer—because you are Consul of Rome, and all Rome is in danger. I will not ennoble your accusations by disputing with you. Catilina is about to march on Rome with his monstrous mobs; he will burn the city out of his perversity and hatred for all that lives. Let us consider together. We dare not seize him publicly. He will call upon his creatures to fall upon Rome in total destruction. What, then, shall we do?”

  Cicero went to his table and began to write quickly with his quill pen. He then sanded the ink, melted wax at the tall candle on the table, then applied his seal on the paper. He called his silent but formidable brother with his eyes and gave the paper to Quintus. “Search Catilina out within the next hours, Quintus,” he said. “I have summoned him to appear before me and the Senate immediately, to answer charges of treason against Rome.”

  Julius smiled, and so did Crassus and Clodius. Pompey studied the floor. Antonius said, “You do not fear him, Marcus?”

  “No,” said Cicero. “I never feared him. I never feared any of these. I suspected them greatly these past few years, but I had no proof but only surmise and my own intuition. Caesar, Pontifex Maximus and Magnus! Crassus, dictator of Rome, and the richest and most powerful man in the country! And others, too many others. Yes, I knew for what they lusted. They will not be turned aside, even now. They wish only to have destroyed their fellow conspirator, who has slipped from their control.” He bowed to them ironically from his chair, and his eyes sparkled with disgust. “Masters of Rome, we who are about to die detest your treason!”

  Cicero had acted shrewdly. He knew that Catilina, who hated and derided him, would laugh at the summons and would appear, as ordered, before the Senate, safe in his fancied power which none would dare provoke into open violence. He would appear, arrogantly, to denounce the “new man,” Cicero, and hold him up to public scorn before the patricians of the Senate, many who were fellow conspirators with him. He, himself, would speak in his musical and languid voice, elegant and puissant, and forever would Cicero be banished by the great laughter which would fall upon him.

  Catilina, receiving the summons just before dawn, laughed with delight. His hour had come. Before the sun set Cicero would be in exile, shamed from the city. Catilina had only one regret: He would have no opportunity now to fire Rome and burn it to the ground as he lusted.

  So, arraying himself in a scarlet toga trimmed with gold, and wearing a beautiful coat of the whitest and softest of fur, Catilina lay in his litter and ordered his splendid slaves to carr
y him to the Senate Chamber. He wore a gemmed necklace in the Egyptian manner, and his armlets and wristlets glittered with jewels and his legs were swathed in scarlet and his feet were shod with fur boots, and at his side was buckled the terrible short sword of Rome, for he was a soldier. As always, he resembled a radiant god in his natural splendor of appearance, and in his dignity and pride. He was composed. Only his intensely blue eyes showed the derangement and evil of his soul, for they appeared on fire.

  The frosty golden sun had just touched the highest roofs of the turbulent city when Catilina set forth; below all was purple dusk under the arches and the pillars, and the stony streets were dark with melting snow and puddles of water. Catilina had expected a quiet hearing before the Senate, whom he would soon convulse with laughter. Therefore, he had requested none of his intimates to be present. General Manlius was not present, nor any of the sinister leaders who were Catilina’s devoted servants. “By the very paucity of my apparent following Cicero’s denunciations—whatever they may be—will become ridiculous,” Catilina had told them all.

  The haste of the summons assured Catilina that only a quorum of Senators would be present, and in that quorum would be many of his secret friends. The people in mass would not be present. It would be very circumspect, except for the aristocratic laughter of those who would listen to Cicero incredulously, and would resent his accusations against a fellow patrician. He, Catilina, would be disdainfully and carelessly surprised that he should be summoned at all—and on what grounds? Catilina knew that through many, many years Cicero had had him watched, waiting for him to stumble, to betray himself. But he had been very careful, or at least his followers had been clever enough not only to recognize Cicero’s spies and so disarm them with an innocent appearance, but to report their movement to their master. There was no way possible that Cicero could know the full ramifications of the plot against Rome. Not for an instant did Catilina suspect Antonius Hybrida, a fellow patrician whom he had approached on the common ground of their heritage, and whom he, Catilina, had convinced should seize power with him the next week on a certain night.

  As for Crassus and Caesar and Pompey and Clodius, and their friends, Catilina now had only the most vehement loathing for them, and a tremendous scorn, as pusillanimous men too timid to move in their own behalf, though their middle years were upon them and Crassus was old. To suspect them of betraying him was incredible, and Catilina gave it no thought not even for a moment. He knew they feared him; he believed that they disliked Cicero and hated him, and he had heard them laugh at him often enough. He was well aware that they had secretly supported Cicero, though long before they had promised Catilina their own support. Vacillating, prudent cowards! It would not be long before they would die, at Catilina’s decree, just as Cicero would die. But before then, Cicero must be banished by the laughter of the Senate and by their order, as his continued presence in Rome as Consul would be an embarrassment to the whole nation.

  Absorbed in his happy and vengeful and insane thoughts, Catilina heard nothing in the warm snugness of his litter but the excited beating of his heart. Whatever sounds of footsteps or hurrying there were, were sounds and hurrying familiar to his ears, and so he was not disturbed. Then the litter came to an abrupt halt, and did not move again. He waited, and took thought with himself. Should he, after the hearing was concluded, institute a libel suit against Cicero, and thus refresh his own purse? It was a matter to be considered, and Catilina’s excitement grew. Chick-pea! The country bumpkin who still smelled of the manure pits and hay and the sty! I have waited long, thought Catilina, clenching his jeweled fists. But I have not lost the appetite!

  Then, all at once, he became aware that the litter had not moved for some time. He impatiently held back the thick woolen curtains of the litter and glanced out. He was stunned with amazement. The Sacred Way was lined with soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, sword to sword, a full legion of them. And behind them rolled a multitude of men, wrapped against the winter wind, strenuous profiles pointed toward the Forum and the Senate. The sound of their passage was like the sound of a river in spring tumult, though it was only the rush of their feet. For some inexplicable reason they were not shouting or jesting or calling or talking as usual. They wound about the gleaming white pillars, and rushed through porticoes, and bounded down vast stairways—pouring into the Forum in a tide of color and voiceless commotion. Catilina glimpsed their flashing eyes, excited and eager. They were like silent wolves on the close steps of the prey, and he saw their suddenly bared teeth vivid and sharp in the rising sun.

  He recognized the legion now. It was the legion of Quintus Tullius Cicero, Quintus whose life he had saved many years ago, Quintus, brother of Cicero. They wore crimson tunics and crimson leggings and brown leather harness and crimson cloaks, and their shining helmets were crowned with crimson crests. He saw their banners held high, the banners of their legion. He saw their faces and their lictors and their drawn swords. They stood immobile, staring before them, apparently seeing nothing, unaware of the huge multitudes pouring behind them.

  Catilina’s hand let the curtain of his litter fall. He lay back on the cushions. For the first time he was full of fear and disquiet and foreboding. How had Quintus assembled his legion in so short a space? And, why were the countless crowds pouring into the Forum? Who had summoned them, even with the thousand tongues of Rome? I am betrayed, thought Catilina. The litter began to move again, slowly, hesitatingly, because of the tides of people flowing across its path at intersections. The crowded hills caught golden fire under the sun, and the purple darkness rose in mist from the streets and turned white in the light. And still the running footsteps became more pressing and more imminent to the man in the closed litter. Catilina tried to think, but his thoughts became disordered and chaotic. Then the litter halted, the curtains were held aside by a slave and Catilina saw that he had reached the steps of the Senate, which were also lined with soldiers. Beyond them the Forum was crowded to the very walls, and more and more people were arriving constantly, to push for space, and to see.

  Catilina alighted from his litter and looked about him. He saw the soldiers and the people. He saw the façades of pale temples and fora and buildings and the Senate. He saw, above it all, the bristling hills of Rome and above them, the blue and silvery sky of winter. It took but an instant to see it. It took but an instant to observe that on his appearance not a single hail greeted him, not an upraised hand. He looked into thousands of impassive eyes, and they looked back at him and not a sound escaped one mouth. It was like gazing at statues of soldiers and men, stricken into colorful stone as at the display of a Gorgon’s head. He alone moved in a great and stupendous silence, so that he heard the slap of his own boots on the marble steps of the Senate Chamber. His knees began to tremble as he mounted, but he held his head high and his face expressed nothing but impersonal contempt and hauteur. He entered the Senate Chamber, and saw that it was crowded and not sparsely inhabited, as he had believed it would be. The Senators were all there, in their white and their scarlet, and they watched the entry of Catilina as impassively as the soldiers and the crowds had watched without. The only movement was his own, and the lazy rising of incense before the altars. He alone had life in a forest of seated statues.

  Then, in the center of the mosaic floor as he stood there, Catilina saw Cicero in the Consul’s chair, and slightly below him sat Antonius Hybrida with a desperate and averted face. He had not expected Antonius. And he had not expected Caesar and Crassus and Pompey and Clodius. Their faces, too, were averted. None looked at Catilina but Cicero, robed in his pure white wool toga and with white shoes, and the eyes of the two men met as once their swords had met. For just a second, seeing those coldly fierce eyes upon him, Catilina qualied. Then, his pride reasserting itself, he pondered on the presence of Crassus and Caesar and their friends and on the strange way in which Antonius avoided looking upon him.

  Cicero sat in silence, revolted, full of hatred, devoid of exul
tation, and feeling only wrath and disgust and the most powerful indignation he had ever experienced. Here was the most malignant traitor of Rome, and the murderer of Livia, the murderer of his own son, the madman who had dared to dream of being king, the patrician who was lower than the most despicable of gutter dogs, the soldier who had defamed the arms of his country, who had dishonored its banners, the aristocrat whom aristocrats now despised, the destroyer whom he, Cicero, must destroy if Rome were to live. Fire took Cicero’s heart, and a bitter fury shook him. But none could guess it, so still he was, so apparently without passion, so objective. Not even his eyes showed what he felt, as he looked on his old enemy. For this day we have both waited many years, he thought, and this day will show whether Romans are still Romans or if they are slaves forever. He had not slept at all during the past night; he had been too busy summoning and writing and thinking of what he must say. He had been too busy praying for his country. Therefore his eyes were sunken and shadowed, but the strength and power of them, changing from blue to amber from second to second, were enhanced by his very exhaustion.

  Then his voice rang out like a trumpet in the awful quiet of the chamber, and Catilina heard its compellingly special note for the first time:

  “Lucius Sergius Catilina! You have been summoned before this august body, and before me, Consul of Rome, and before C. Antonius Hybrida, my colleague, and before Licinius Crassus, dictator of Rome, and before Julius Caesar, Pontifex Maximus and Magnus, and Praetor, and before Pompey the Magnus, and before the face of Rome, itself, to answer the charge of treason and conspiracy against your country!

  “Your crimes and your plots and your companions are known. If you have an advocate, call him forth.”