A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

  She frowned. Then she shivered suddenly. “There was a stain on her breast like blood. She wore it like a blazing flower.”

  Livia wished me to know beyond all doubt, Cicero thought. He patted his daughter’s hand and kissed her cheek. “You do not know her name nor whence she came, and it must have been a dream,” he said, and comforted her. He was a Roman, and skeptical, and he had almost forgotten God and his days had been full of cold mist. Nevertheless, for some time he thought of Livia and when he thought of her he was filled with joyous impatience and desire. At this point in his life he preferred dreams to reality.

  When the weather became cold and sharp Cicero left for Rome with his daughter in a covered car. Tullia had begun to fail rapidly. She lay swathed with blankets in the car, breathing with difficulty, her flaccid hand curled within her father’s. Nothing warmed it. Cicero prayed and after his despairing prayers he cursed the gods that they should desire his daughter. “Have you not taken from me honor and reputation, wealth and health?” he would address them in agony. “Have you not destroyed my city and degraded my people? Have you not lifted a tyrant with his lictors and banners to afflict my country? Have you not afflicted me in all ways possible and have you not brought all my dreams to dust? Can you not spare my child, my Tullia? Do you hate man so much that you must visit him with calamity?”

  Tullia, on arriving in Rome, was put to bed and from it she never rose. Her father spent hours with her. As always, she never complained. She had little breath for speech. But she smiled at her father and put her hand into his. Her eyes grew larger each day as her flesh dwindled. He visited her at midnight to be sure that she still lived, and her eyes blessed him and she seemed to be trying to comfort him. The slaves said she slept constantly, but her father had need but to approach her chamber for her eyes to open.

  Cicero thought that the winters of his life were always cold now. The snow began to fall early during the Saturnalia. The air was particularly dismal and damp and the winds were ferocious. Braziers were constantly fired in Tullia’s chamber. She never warmed; her flesh shivered. Blankets were heaped upon her and hot bricks were placed at her feet. The physicians shook their heads, sighing. Tullia now had lost all power of speech. Her whole being was concentrated on drawing her next trembling breath. But courage shown from her eyes and concern for her father. However, when her divorced mother visited her she would appear to fall into a deep sleep and be unaware of Terentia’s presence.

  The month of Janus passed. The snows became heavier and deeper. Cicero had lost all awareness of time and the fate of his country as he kept his dolorous watches at the bed of his daughter. Vistors came and went; he did not remember them. His books gathered dust, and his pen. Letters remained unanswered. Time was suspended.

  One night, as he sat beside Tullia’s bed he fell into an exhausted sleep in his chair. The lamps fluttered low. Two slave girls slept on pallets at the foot of the bed. Suddenly Cicero heard Tullia cry, “My father!” He started awake; the lamps flared into great light. Tullia was standing beside him and she was laughing and her face was glowing with joy and she was fresh with life. Incredulous, he stretched out his eager hand to her, but she evaded him with a mirthful shake of her head. Her garments seemed to flutter in a soft wind, and her hair flowed and sparkled and her lips were as red as roses. She put both her hands to her mouth and kissed them then threw the kisses to Cicero. Then, without sound, but looking over her shoulder and smiling at her father, she sped to the door, opened it and closed it behind her. He heard her calling, “I am coming!” Her voice was a song.

  A darkness fell over his eyes. He felt his shoulder being shaken and saw the faces of the weeping slave girls. Starting violently, he looked at the bed; Tullia lay there, still and white, a small mound under the blankets. He staggered to her, and looked into her dead face, which was peaceful and calm. Her hair illuminated her pillows, and her hands were fallen. In her death she was a child again. He fell to his knees and laid his cheek against hers.

  Days passed and he did not know them. He wrote to Atticus finally, and said, “I have had a strange experience.” He was certain his last strength had left with his daughter’s spirit, but he still was able to write his great book, Consolation (Consolatio).

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  Now life is completely over for me, Cicero told himself. Listlessly, he heard that Julius Caesar had returned to Rome, triumphant over the last of his enemies; he had defeated them in Munda, Spain. No one remained to challenge him. His eyes were turned toward empire and he as Imperator. One day in late summer he visited Cicero, accompanied by the handsome and spirited and swaggering Mark Antony, and Marcus Brutus, his unacknowledged son. He was young no longer, but virility and power radiated about him and his dark face was the face of a great eagle. He was clothed in splendor and his favorite purple and gold. He was bald, but that did not diminish him. Where he moved the air crackled. He embraced Cicero and gazed into his face with affectionate concern.

  “My dear old friend!” he exclaimed. “Long has it been since my eyes were delighted by you! I have come to offer my condolences, for your sorrow must be great.”

  “All is nothing,” said Cicero. He could not restrain himself. He remained in Caesar’s comforting arms and he fell into weeping, the first tears he had shed since his daughter had died. “But you do not know this yet,” he stammered.

  “I hope I shall never know it,” said Caesar.

  Cicero wished that Julius had not come with Antony and Brutus, young men with handsome and curious faces and alert and avid eyes. It was a weakness in him, but he wished to be alone with Julius, whom his reason despised but whom he loved. He craved to look into Caesar’s eyes and see there again the child he had protected even though he knew it was folly. He wished some tie with the past and some memories. He could only say with a wan smile, “How does it seem to you, Julius, now that you have attained the mighty ambition of all your life—master of Rome?”

  “As it was always my dream,” said Julius, “I was always what I am.”

  “Yes, I remember,” said Cicero, sighing. Julius looked quickly about the lonely house. He thought of the hasty marriage, recently ended after so short a time, into which Cicero had entered with a rich young lady, his ward, Publilia. Only overwhelming loneliness and a vague grasping at departing life could have induced Cicero into so disordered and confused a marriage. The girl had been far younger than Tullia, but she was sprightly and gay and with the youth of springtime. It had all ended in disaster. It was apparent to Julius that the marriage had made no impression on Cicero at all, and that it had been only an episode, a dreamlike gesture on the part of the abandoned man.

  The gardens about the house were turbulent with color in this early autumn, and the sun blazed fervently on all things. But the house was cold and dim and Cicero appeared as a shade to the vital Julius. Somewhere a bird called in fluting melancholy. The rooms were empty of life. Julius shivered. But he embraced Cicero again and said in a loud and loving voice, “You have been alone too long! Now it is time to live again!”

  “Not for me,” said Cicero. “I no longer desire to see another day.”

  He gazed into Julius’ eyes. “You have all you wish, all you have ever wanted?”

  Julius’ eyes shifted. He clapped Cicero exuberantly on the shoulder and said, “Not all. Not entirely.” Later Cicero told himself that it was only his imagination that made him believe that the face of Brutus had darkened and that his eyes had glinted. Mark Antony was smiling his vast and glowing smile, and he looked like Mars, himself, ingenuous but brave. It was said, even by himself, that he lived only in the shadow of Julius Caesar, to whom he was more devoted than a son. Well, these were the masters of Rome now, and these were Rome’s fate, and the Republic was no more.

  Unable to bear Rome even though the autumn was drawing in and winter close behind her vivid skirts, Cicero went to his dear island which was haunted by all whom he loved. There, though he had sworn he would never work again,
he wrote his greatest books, Tusculan Disputations, On the Nature of the Gods, On Divination, On Old Age, On Friendship, and On Moral Duties. He had gathered the notes over all his long life, “during which,” he wrote to Atticus, “nothing of any importance has ever happened.” Here, on this island, he would die and his ashes would be laid with his fathers and he would finally have the peace he had sought through the endless years. He would walk through the blazing white snows on the island and look at the black river tumbling along its banks and he could sometimes persuade himself that his years were as nothing and he had never left his home. “I am an old man. I am a babe. That is the story of all humanity.”

  The bright snow draped the tombs of his fathers, his mother, his daughter, scintillating in the winter sun. Here, among them, he would lie one day and let the ages roll over his head while he slept and knew them not. The long while I shall not be, he thought, with a kind of joy. He wrapped his fur coat about him and fixed the spot where he would sleep, here between his mother and Tullia. Then as he stared musingly at the place there was only an emptiness, a floating darkness. He blinked his eyes; they had only been struck by the blinding dazzle of light on snow. Nevertheless he shivered and went on. A crow glaring black in all that serene whiteness, rose up before him with a hoarse cry and he made a sign against the evil eye and called on his Roman cynicism to reassure him.

  A false spring came, warm and soft, and he was tempted not to return to Rome but remain on the island. The rivers shouted as they ran and the snow dropped from barren boughs with soft splashes. Patches of greenness appeared; buds were enlarging on the trees. The waters turned from darkness to turquoise, and the wet red roofs of Arpinum glowed like fire against a newborn sky. Old Eunice came with the slave girls to weave in the open portico, and ancient Athos, hobbling with a cane, went out to look at the young lambs. But a curious restlessness seized Cicero. He had few law cases now but some of them were to be heard during the Ides of March. They could wait. However, he prepared to return to Rome. On the last day when Eunice had served him his country meal of dark bread, goat cheese, boiled meat and turnips and onions and the wine of the island, she said to him, “Master, do not leave us. I have had a troubling dream.” Pressed to explain, she said haltingly, “I have seen a murder in a white building, but I do not see his face. I fear it may be your own.”

  “Nonsense, Eunice,” he replied. “I am no importance in Rome any longer. And I have duties, and if I do not see to my investments I shall have nothing at all.”

  Because of the cold he traveled in a covered car with one sturdy young man to drive the two horses. When they were on the arch of the bridge Cicero said, “Stay for a moment.” He put aside the heavy woolen curtains and looked back at the island. A terrible and nameless longing overcame him. He listened to the voices of the rivers and the brisk and nimble wind. He saw the distant white farmhouse and all its smaller buildings. He saw the arches of the skeletal trees, their branches locked together, and the patches of snow shining between tufts of greening grass. He heard the complaints of sheep and cattle, and the bark of a dog. He smiled. It was so infinitely peaceful. He drenched his eyes with the scene, and then dropped the curtains again and went on. He did not know that never again would he see this beloved spot and never again would he hear the colloquy of the rivers.

  No one was in the house on the Palatine save the slaves and the old overseer, Aulus, who had long ago been given his freedom, for Cicero, admiring the laws of the Jews, freed all slaves after they had been in his service for seven years. During their service he had them instructed in clever ways of making their living, had educated the more intelligent and prepared them to be scribes and public servants, and had always given them a handsome gift on their leaving his service. But many preferred to remain with him.

  Aulus greeted him with love. Cicero, after an embrace, said he desired to be alone. A spring torrent was falling outside; every room in the cold house was awhisper with gray rain, and every room was dusky. His footsteps slapped on marble as he walked from hall to hall, listening to the rustle of dropping water and the mournful communication of the wind. Once this house had rung with the voices of youth and children; once there were quick and hurried footsteps; once the knockings at the door had been brisk and frequent, and the songs of slaves could be heard everywhere, and their laughter. Now there was nothing but this quiet dim house and the rain and the wind, and an aging man whose thin shadow flitted on glimmering marble walls like a wraith. He was both restless and exhausted.

  The rain continued for a number of days while Cicero lived quietly and did not leave his house and polished up his last book for Atticus. Then one night a visitor was announced and Marcus Brutus, to Cicero’s surprise, entered his library. He knew the young man only slightly; he could not understand why he had come. He ordered wine and refreshments and Brutus sat down in silence, dark and gloomy, his thin eagle face clenched, as it were, in iron. Cicero waited patiently to learn the reason for this extraordinary visit. Then Brutus, in the hard and intense voice of a young man who is sombrely disturbed, began to speak.

  “Lord,” said Brutus, “I have heard that you wrote your publisher that you hoped that Caesar would restore the Republic, return to power the respectable and conservative elements of Rome, and congratulated Caesar that he had destroyed the records of those who had acted against him, ‘thus revealing his clemency and desire for peace in our country.’”

  “True,” said Cicero, somewhat embarrassed. “What little else does a man my age have but hope, even if it is eternally betrayed?”

  Brutus’ dark eyes, so like Caesar’s sparkled on him with quiet wrath. “It was only hope, then. You did not believe it?”

  Cicero was silent. Brutus drank a little wine. The rain and wind continued; there was a faint sound of thunder, a flash of lightning; the lamps flared in a draft. The cold house was dank and silent.

  “You, Cicero,” said Brutus, “also wrote to Caesar—and I have seen the letter—‘To this must you summon all your powers—to restore the Republic, and yourself to reap the most blessed fruits thereof in peace and tranquillity.’”

  “True,” said Cicero.

  “Do you know what Caesar did when he received your letter? He laughed. Then he made a grimace of mock gravity and said, ‘Our Cicero grows old that he returns to dreams of youth.’”

  “Tell me,” said Cicero, flushing, “what is all this to you, Marcus Brutus?”

  “I, too, wish the Republic to be rebuilt and strength and virtue to sustain it as in the days of our fathers. Caesar has laughed in private and has declared that the Republic is a sham and that Sulla was stupid to lay down his dictatorship. Caesar has been named dictator for life. That is not enough for him. Do you know his latest madness? Only half-laughing, he mentioned the Oriental practice of declaring ‘great men’ to be divinities, and thereafter ruling as divinities. Still only half-laughing, he said he would ask the Senate to declare him divine!”

  “Impossible!” exclaimed Cicero. “Julius was always a jester! I have known him from childhood.” But Brutus’ darkling face became even more wrathful.

  “Do not laugh, I beg of you, Cicero. When Caesar jests it is well to have a sharp ear. His jokes are for a purpose—suggestions, or to study the faces of those who hear him for their thoughts. He hates patriots; he despises the Senate, the Assemblies, and the tribunes; he loathes the conservatives. They stand in the way of his supreme power over Rome. He wishes the crown; he desires to be Imperator.”

  Cicero leaned his weary cheek on his hand. “He has restored order; we have no more riots and demonstrations on the streets, no more bawling of the mobs.”

  “He permitted Clodius to incite these in order to create confusion and insurrection and war, so that he could seize power. I have heard that you have accused him of these things, yourself. Why otherwise did you throw in your lot with Pompey?”

  Cicero dropped his hand and looked at young Brutus with exhaustion. “Tell me, Brutus, why you have come to me,
you Caesar’s friend and follower.”

  Brutus hesitated. “I believed him, that he would restore the Republic. I preferred him to Pompey, who was a plebeian for all he was a great soldier. Caesar has betrayed all of us. Including you, Marcus Tullius Cicero.”

  “Do not blame Caesar,” said the older man with bitterness. “Blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions and laughed delightedly at his licentiousness, and thought it very superior of him to acquire vast amounts of gold illicitly. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of ‘the new, wonderful good society’ which shall now be Rome’s, which they interpret as more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious. Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man.” He rubbed his hands over his tired eyes. “Why have you come to me, Brutus?”

  Brutus said sharply, “Denounce him in the Senate! Many of us will be there to hear you! Denounce him to the people!”

  Cicero was incredulous. “Are you mad? I would be murdered on the spot by the mobs.”

  “Is your life, then, your dwindling life, more precious than Rome?”

  Cicero groaned. “No, never was it so. If I believed that in laying down my life, in publicly denouncing Caesar, I should do so at once. But it would be of no use.”

  Brutus regarded him with contempt. “Your age speaks, not your spirit. Do you know what Caesar has also said? That he wishes his nephew, Octavius, ‘to follow in my steps and sit where I sit and serve his country.’ What does that mean? That Caesar is determined to have the crown, and, like a pasha, an emperor, let it descend to young Octavius.”