THE OLD PATRICIAN.
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A Roman father of the olden time.
MS. Play.
In a small street, not far from the Sacred Way and the
Roman Forum, there was a large house, occupying the
whole of one insula, as the space contained between four
intersecting streets was called by the ancients.
But, although by its great size and a certain rude magnificence,
arising from the massy stone-work of its walls,
and the solemn antiquity of the old Oscan columns which
adorned its entrance, it might be recognised at once as the
abode of some Patrician family; it was as different in
many respects from the abodes of the aristocracy of that
day, as if it had been erected in a different age and country.
It had no stately colonnades of foreign marbles, no tesselated
pavement to the vestibule, no glowing frescoes on
the walls, no long lines of exterior windows, glittering
with the new luxury of glass. All was decorous, it is true;
but all, at the same time, was stern, and grave, and singular
for its antique simplicity.
On either hand of the entrance, there was, in accordance
with the custom of centuries long past, when Rome's
Consulars were tillers of the ground, a large shop with an
open front, devoted to the sale of the produce of the
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owner's farm. And, strange to say, although the custom had
been long disused in these degenerate times, it seemed
that the owner of this time-honored mansion adhered sturdily
to the ancient usage of his race.
For, in one of these large cold unadorned vaults, a tall
grayheaded slave, a rural laborer, as it required no second
glance to perceive, was presiding over piles of cheese,
stone-jars of honey, baskets of autumn fruits, and sacks of
grain, by the red light of a large smoky flambeau; while a
younger man, who from his resemblance to the other
might safely be pronounced his son, was keeping an account
of the sales by a somewhat complicated system of
tallies.
In the other apartment, two youths, slaves likewise
from the suburban or rustic farm, were giving samples, to
such as wished to buy, of different qualities of wine from
several amphora or earthen pitchers, which stood on a
stone counter forming the sill of the low-browed window.
It was late in the evening already, and the streets were
rapidly growing dark; yet there were many passengers
abroad, more perhaps than was usual at that hour; and
now and then, a little group would form about one or the
other of the windows, cheapening and purchasing provisions,
and chatting for a few minutes, after their business
was finished, with their gossips.
These groups were composed altogether of the lowest
order of the free citizens of Rome, artizans, and small
shop keepers, and here and there a woman of low origin,
or perhaps a slave, the house steward of some noble family,
mingling half reluctantly with his superiors. For the
time had not arrived, when the soft eunuchs of the East,
and the bold bravoes of the heroic North, favorites and
tools of some licentious lord, dared to insult the freeborn
men of Rome, or gloried in the badges of their servitude.
The conversation ran, as it was natural to expect, on
the probable results of the next day's election; and it was
a little remarkable, that among these, who should have
been the supporters of the democratic faction, there appeared
to be far more of alarm and of suspicion, concerning
the objects of Catiline, than of enthusiasm for the popular
cause.
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“He a man of the people, or the people's friend!” said
an old grave-looking mechanic; “No, by the Gods! no
more than the wolf is the friend of the sheepfold!”
“He may hate the nobles,” said another, “or envy the
great rich houses; but he loves nothing of the people, unless
it be their purses, if he can get a chance to squeeze
them”—
“Or their daughters,” interrupted a third, “if they be
fair and willing”—
“Little cares he for their good-will,” cried yet a fourth,
“so they are young and handsome. It is but eight days
since, that some of his gang carried off Marcus', the butcher's,
bride, Icilia, on the night of her bridal. They
kept her three days; and on the fourth sent her home dishonored,
with a scroll, `that she was now a fit wife for a
butcher'!”
“By the Gods!” exclaimed one or two of the younger
men, “who was it did this thing?”
“One of the people's friends!” answered the other,
with a sneer.
“The people have no friends, since Caius Marius died,”
said the deep voice of Fulvius Flaccus, as he passed casually
through the crowd.
“But what befel the poor Icilia?” asked an old matron,
who had been listening with greedy sympathy to the dark
tale.
“Why, Marcus would yet have taken her to his bosom,
seeing she had no share in the guilt; but she bore a heart
too Roman to bring disgrace upon one she loved, or to
survive her honor. Icilia is no longer.”
“She died like Lucretia!” said an old man, who stood
near, with a clouded brow, which flashed into stormy
light, as the same deep voice asked aloud,
“Shall she be so avenged?”
“But the transient gleam faded instantly away, and the
sad face was again blank and rayless, as he replied—
“No—for who should avenge her?”
“The people! the people!” shouted several voices, for
the mob was gathering, and growing angry—
“The Roman People should avenge her!”
“Tush!” answered Fulvius Flaccus. “There is no
Roman people!”
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“And who are you,” exclaimed two or three of the
younger men, “that dare tell us so?”
“The grandson,” answered the republican, “of one,
who, while there yet was a people, loved it”—
“His name? his name?” shouted many voices.
“He hath no name”—replied Fulvius. “He lost that,
and his life together.”
“Lost them for the people?” inquired the old man,
whom he had first addressed, and who had been scrutinizing
him narrowly.
“And by the people,” answered the other. “For the
people's cause; and by the people's treason! — as is the
case,” he added, half scornfully, half sadly, “with all who
love the people.”
“Hear him, my countrymen,” said the old man. “Hear
him. If there be any one can save you, it is he. It is Fulvius,
the son of Caius, the son of Marcus—Flaccus. Hear
him, I say, if he will only lead you.”
“Lead us! speak to us! lead us!” shouted the fickle
crowd. “Love us, good Fulvius, as your fathers did of
old.”
“And die, for you, as they died!” replied the other, in
a tone of melancholy sarcasm. “Hark you, my masters,”
he added, “there are none now against whom to lead you;
and if there were, I think there would be none to follow.
Keep your palms unsoiled by the base bribes of the nobles!
Keep your ears closed to the base lies of the demagogues!
Keep your hearts true and honest! Keep your eyes open
and watchful! Brawl not, one with the other; but be
faithful, as brethren should. Be grave, laborious, sober,
and above all things humble, as men who once were free
and great, and now, by their own fault, are fallen and degraded.
Make yourselves fit to be led gloriously; and,
when the time shall come, there will be no lack of glorious
leaders!”
“But to-morrow? what shall we do to-morrow?” cried
several voices; but this time it was the elder men, who
asked the question, “for whom shall we vote to-morrow?”
“For the friend of the people!” answered Flaccus.
“Where shall we find him?” was the cry; “who is the
friend of the people?”
“Not he who would arm them, one against the other,”
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he replied. “Not he, who would burn their workshops,
and destroy their means of daily sustenance! Not he, by
all the Gods! who sports with the honor of their wives,
the virtue”—
But he was interrupted here, by a stern sullen hum
among his audience, increasing gradually to a fierce savage
outcry. The mob swayed to and fro; and it was
evident that something was occurring in the midst, by
which it was tremendously excited.
Breaking off suddenly in his speech, the democrat
leaped on a large block of stone, standing at the corner of
the large house in front of which the multitude was gathered,
and looked out anxiously, if he might descry the cause
of the tumult.
Nor was it long ere he succeeded.
A young man, tall and of a slender frame, with features
singularly handsome, was making his way, as best he
could, with unsteady steps, and a face haggard and pale
with debauchery, through the tumultuous and angry concourse.
His head, which had no other covering than its long
curled and perfumed locks, was crowned with a myrtle
wreath; he wore a long loose saffron-colored tunic richly
embroidered, but ungirt, and flowing nearly to his
ankles; and from the dress, and the torch-bearers, who
preceded him, as well as from his wild eye and reeling
gait, it was evident that he was returning from some
riotous banquet.
Fulvius instantly recognised him. It was a kinsman of
his own, Aulus, the son of Aulus Fulvius, the noblest of
the survivors of his house, a senator of the old school, a
man of stern and rigid virtue, the owner of that grand
simple mansion, beside the door of which he stood.
But, though he recognised his cousin, he was at a loss
for a while to discover the cause of the tumult; 'till,
suddenly, a word, a female name, angrily murmured
through the crowd, gave a clue to its meaning.
“Icilia! Icilia!”
Still, though the crowd swayed to and fro, and jostled,
and shouted, becoming evidently more angry every moment,
it made way for the young noble, who advanced
fearlessly, with a sort of calm and scornful insolence,
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contemning the rage which his own vile deed had
awakened.
At length one of the mob, bolder than the rest, thrust
himself in between the torch bearers and their lord, and
meeting the latter face to face, cried out, so that all the
crowd might hear,
“Lo! Aulus Fulvius! the violator of Icilia! the friend
of the people!”
A loud roar of savage laughter followed; and then,
encouraged by the applause of his fellows, the man
added,
“Vote for Aulus Fulvius, the friend of the people!
vote for good Aulus, and his virtuous friend Catiline!”
The hot blood flashed to the brow of the young noble,
at the undisguised scorn of the plebeian's speech. Insolence
he could have borne, but contempt!—and contempt
from a plebeian!
He raised his hand; and slight and unmuscular as he
appeared, indignation lent such vigor to that effeminate
arm, that the blow which he dealt him on the face, cast
the burly mechanic headlong, with the blood spouting
from his mouth and nostrils.
A fearful roar of the mob, and a furious rush against
the oppressor, followed.
The torch-bearers fought for their master gallantly,
with their tough oaken staves; and the young man showed
his patrician blood by his patrician courage in the fray.
Flaccus, too, wished and endeavored to interpose, not so
much that he cared to shield his unworthy kinsman, as
that he sought to preserve the energies of the people for
a more noble trial. The multitude, moreover, impeded
one another by their own violent impetuosity; and to this
it was owing, more than to the defence of his followers,
or the intercession of the popular Flaccus, that the young
libertine was not torn to pieces, on the threshold of his
own father's house.
The matter, however, was growing very serious—
stones, staves, and torches flew fast through the air—the
crash of windows in the neighboring houses was answered
by the roar of the increasing mob, and every
thing seemed to portend a very dangerous tumult; when,
at the same moment, the door of the Fulvian House was
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thrown open, and the high-crested helmets of a cohort
were seen approaching, in a serried line, above the bare
heads of the multitude.
Order was restored very rapidly; for a pacific party
had been rallying around Fulvius Flaccus, and their
efforts, added to the advance of the levelled pila of the
cohort, were almost instantly successful.
Nor did the sight, which was presented by the opening
door of the Fulvian mansion, lack its peculiar influence
on the people.
An old man issued forth, alone, from the unfolded
portals.
He was indeed extremely old; with hair as white as
snow, and a long venerable beard falling in waves of
silver far down upon his chest. Yet his eyebrows were
black as night, and these, with the proud arch of his
Roman nose, and the glance of his eagle eyes, untamed
by time or hardship, almost denied the inference drawn
from the white head and reverend chin.
His frame, which must once have been unusually
powerful and athletic, was now lean and emaciated;
yet he held himself erect as a centennial pine on Mount
Algidus, and stood as firmly on his threshold, looking
down on the tumultuous concourse, which waved and
flunctuated, like the smaller trees of the mountain side,
beneath him.
His dress was of the plain and narrow cut, peculiar to
the good olden time; yet it had the distinctive marks of
the senatorial rank.
It was the virtuous, severe, old senator—the noblest,
alas! soon to be the last, of his noble race.
“What means this tumult?” he said in a deep firm
sonorous voice, “Wherefore is it, that ye shout thus,
and hurl stones about a friendly door! For shame! for
shame! What is it that ye lack? Bread? Ye have
had it ever at my hands, without seeking it thus rudely.”
“It is not bread, most noble Aulus, that we would
have,” cried the old man, who had made himself somewhat
conspicuous before, “but vengeance!”
“Venegeance, on whom, and for what?” exclaimed the
noble Roman.
But ere his question could be answered, the crowd
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opened before him, and his son stood revealed, sobered
indeed by the danger he had run, but pale, haggard,
bleeding, covered with mud and filth, and supported by
one of his wounded slaves.
“Ah!” cried the old man, starting back aghast,
“What is this? What fresh crime? What recent infamy?
What new pollution of our name?”
“Icilia! Icilia! vengeance for poor Icilia!” cried the
mob once again; but they now made no effort to inflict
the punishment, for which they clamored; so perfect was
their confidence in the old man's justice, even against his
own flesh and blood.
At the next moment a voice was heard, loud and clear
as a silver trumpet, calling upon the people to disperse.
It was the voice of Paullus, who now strode into the
gap, left by the opening concourse, glittering in the full
panoply of a decurion of the horse, thirty dismounted
troopers arranging themselves in a glittering line behind
him.
At the sight of the soldiery, led by one whose face was
familiar to him, the audacity of the young man revived;
and turning round with a light laugh toward Arvina,
“Here is a precious coil,” he said, “my Paullus, about
a poor plebeian harlot!”
“I never heard that Icilia was such,” replied the young
soldier sternly, for the dark tale was but too well known;
“nor must you look to me, Aulus Fulvius, for countenance
in deeds like these, although it be my duty to protect
you from violence! Come my friends,” he continued,
turning to the multitude, “You must disperse, at
once, to your several homes; if any have been wronged
by this man, he can have justice at the tribunal of the
Prætor! But there must be no violence!”
“Is this thing true, Aulus?” asked the old man, in
tones so stern and solemn, that the youth hung his head
and was silent.
“Is this thing true?” the Senator repeated.
“Why, hath he not confessed it?” asked the old man,
who had spoken so many times before; and who had
lingered with Fulvius Flaccus, and a few others of the
crowd. “It is true.”
“Who art thou?” asked the old Patrician, a terrible
suspicion crossing his mind.
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“The father of that daughter, whom thy son forcibly
dishonored!”
“Enter!” replied the senator, throwing the door, in
front of which he stood, wide open, “thou shalt have
justice!”
Then, casting a glance full of sad but resolute determination
upon the culprit, all whose audacity had passed
away, he said in a graver tone,
“Enter thou likewise; thou shalt have punishment!”
“Punishment!” answered the proud youth, his eye
flashing, “Punishment! and from whom?”
“Punishment from thy father! wilt thou question it?
Punishment, even unto death, if thou shalt be found worthy
to die!—the law is not dead, if it have slept awhile!
Enter!”
He dared not to reply—he dared not to refuse. Slow,
sullen, and crest-fallen, he crossed his father's threshhold;
but, as he did so, he glared terribly on Paullus,
and shook his hand at him, and cried in tones of deadly
hatred,
“This is thy doing! curses—curses upon thee! thou
shalt rue it!”
Arvina smiled in calm contempt of his impotent resentment.
The culprit, the accuser, and the judge passed inward;
the door closed heavily behind them; the crowd dispersed;
the soldiery marched onward; and the street,
in front of the Fulvian House, was left dark and silent.
An hour perhaps had passed, when the door was again
opened, and the aged plebeian, Icilia's father, issued into
the dark street.
“Scourged!” he cried, with a wild triumphant laugh,
“Scourged, like a slave, at his own father's bidding!
Rejoice, exult, Julia! thy shame is half avenged!”
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CHAPTER II. THE CONSULAR COMITIA.
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Your voices!
Coriolanus.
The morning had at length arrived, big with the fate of
Rome. The morning of the Consular elections.
The sun shone broad and bright over the gorgeous city,
and the wide green expanse of the field of Mars, whereon,
from an hour before the first peep of dawn, the mighty
multitude of Roman citizens had stood assembled.
All the formalities had been performed successfully. The
Consul Cicero, who had gone forth beyond the walls to
take the auspices, accompanied by an augur, had declared
the auguries favorable.
The separate enclosures, with the bridges, as they were
termed, across which the centuries must pass to give their
votes, had been erected; the distributors of the ballots,
and the guardians of the ballot-boxes, had been appointed.
And now, as the sun rushed up with his crown of living
glory into the cloudless arch of heaven, the brazen trumpets
of the centuries pealed long and loud, calling the civic
army to its ranks, in order to commence their voting.
That was the awful moment; and scarce a breast was
there, but beat high with hope or fear, or dark and vague
anticipation.
The Consul and the friends of order were, perhaps,
calmer and more confident, than any others of that mighty
concourse; for they were satisfied with their preparations;
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they were firm in the support of the patrician houses, and
in the unanimity of the Roman knights conciliated by Cicero.
Scarcely less confident were the conspirators; for with
so much secrecy had the arrangements of the Consul been
made, that although Catiline knew himself suspected, knew
that his motives were perspicuous, and his measures in
some sort anticipated, he yet believed that the time was
propitious.
He hoped, and believed as fully as he hoped, that Cicero
and his party, content with the triumph they had obtained
in the Senate, and with the adjudication by that
body of dictatorial power to the consuls, were now deceived
into the idea that the danger was already over.
Still, his fierce heart throbbed violently; and there was
a feeling of hot agonizing doubt blent with the truculent
hope, the savage ambition, the strong thirst of blood, which
goaded him almost to madness.
From an early hour he had stood surrounded by his
friends, the leaders of that awful faction, hard by the portico
of the diribitorium, or pay-office, marking with a keen
eye every group that entered the field of Mars, and addressing
those, whom he knew friendly to his measures,
with many a fiery word of greeting and encouragement.
Cassius and Lentulus, a little way behind him, leaned
against the columns of the gateway, with more than a thousand
of the clients of their houses lounging about in groups,
seemingly inattentive, but really alive to every word or
glance of their leaders.
These men were all armed secretly with breast plates,
and the puissant Roman sword, beneath their peaceful togas.
These men, well-trained in the wars of Sylla, hardy and
brave, and acting in a body, were destined to commence
the work of slaughter, by slaying the Great Consul, so
soon as he should open the comitia.
Cethegus had departed, already, to join his gladiators,
who, to the number of fifteen hundred, were gathered beyond
the Janiculum, ready to act upon the guard, and to
beat down the standard which waved there, the signal of
election.
Statilius, Gabinius, and Cæparius, were ready with their
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armed households and insurgent slaves, prepared at a moment's
notice to throw open the prison doors, and fire the
city in twelve places.
Fearless, unanimous, armed, and athirst for blood, the
foes of the republic stood, and marked with greedy eyes
and visages inflamed and fiery, their victims sweep through
the gates, arrayed in their peaceful robes, unarmed, as it
would seem, and unsuspecting.
Not a guard was to be seen anywhere; not a symptom
of suspicion; much less of preparation. The wonted cohort
only was gathered about the standard on the bridge
gate of the Janiculum; but even these bore neither shields,
nor javelins; and sat or lounged about, unconcerned, and
evidently off their guard.
But the keen eye of Catiline, could mark the band of
grey-tunicked Gladiators, mustered, and ready to assume
the offensive at a moment's notice, though now they were
sauntering about, or sitting down or lying in the shade, or
chatting with the country girls and rustic slaves, who covered
the sloping hill-sides of the Janiculum, commanding a
full view of the Campus Martius.
“The Fools!” muttered Catiline. “The miserable,
God-deserted idiots! Does the man of Arpinum deem
me then so weak, to be disarmed by an edict, quelled by a
paltry proclamation?”
Then, as the stout smith, Caius Crispus, passed by him,
with a gang of workmen, and a rabble of the lowest citizens,
“Ha!” he exclaimed, “hail, Crispus—hail, brave hearts!—
all things look well for us to-day—well for the people!
Your voices, friends; I must have your voices!”
“You shall—Catiline!” replied the smith—“and our
hands also!” he added, with a significant smile and a dark
glance.
“Catiline! Catiline—all friends of the good people, all
foes of the proud patricians, give noble Catiline your voices!”
“Catiline! Catiline for the persecuted people!” and,
with a wild and stirring shout, the mob passed inward
through the gate, leaving the smith behind, however; who
stopped as if to speak with one of the Cornelian clients,
but in reality to wait further orders.
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“When shall we march”—he asked, after a moment or
two, stealthily approaching the chief conspirator. “Before
they have called the prerogative century to vote, or when
the knights are in the bridges?”
“When the standard goes down, fool!” replied Catiline,
harshly. “Do not you know your work?”
At this moment, a party of young and dissipated nobles
came swaggering along the road, with their ungirded tunics
flowing down to their heels, their long sleeves fringed
with purple falling as far as to their wrists, and their curled
ringlets floating on their shoulders. Among them, with a
bloodshot eye, a pale and haggard face, and a strange terrible
expression, half-sullen, half-ashamed, on all his features,
as if he fancied that his last night's disgrace was known to
all men, strode Aulus Fulvius, the son of that stern senator.
“Your voices! noblemen, your voices!” cried Catiline,
laughing with feigned gayety—“Do but your work to-day,
and to-night”—
“Wine and fair women!” shouted one; but Aulus smiled
savagely, and darkly, and answered in one word “Revenge!”
Next behind them, came Bassus, the veteran father of
the dead eagle-bearer; he who had told so sad a tale of
patrician cruelty to Fulvius Flaccus, in the forge.
“Why, Bassus, my brave veteran, give me your hand,”
cried the conspirator, making a forward step to meet him.
“For whom vote you to-day, for Murœna and Silanus?
Ha?”
“For Catiline and justice!” answered the old man, “justice
on him who wronged the Eagle-bearer's child! who
sits in the senate even yet, defiled with her pure blood!—
the infamous Cornelius!”
Another man had paused to listen to these words, and he
now interposed, speaking to Bassus,
“Verily Catiline is like to do thee justice, my poor Bassus,
on a member of the Cornelian house! Is't Lentulus, I
prithee, or Cethegus, on whom thou would'st have justice?”
But the old man replied angrily, “The people's friend
shall give the people justice! who ever knew a noble pity
or right a poor man?”
“Ask Aulus Fulvius”—replied the other, with a
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sarcastic tone, and a strange smile lighting up his features. “Besides,
is not Catiline a noble?”
At the word Aulus Fulvius leaped on him like a tiger,
with his face crimsoning, and his heart almost bursting with
fury.
He could not speak for rage, but he seized the man who
had uttered those mysterious words by the throat, and brandished
a long poniard, extricated in a second's space from
the loose sleeve of his tunic, furiously in the air.
As the bright blade flashed in the sunlight, there was a
forward rush among the conspirators, who, anxious to
avert any casual affray, that might have created a disturbance,
would have checked the blow.
But their aid would have come too late, had not the man
thus suddenly assaulted, by an extraordinary exertion of
strength, vigor, and agility, wrenched the dagger from
Aulus' hand, and, tripping him at the same moment with
his foot, hurled him upon his back in the dust, which
surged up in a great cloud, covering his perfumed hair and
snow-white toga, with its filthy and fætid particles.
“Ha! ha!” he cried with a loud ringing laugh, as he
tossed the weapon high into the sunny air, that all around
might see it—“Here is one of your noble people's friends!—
Do they wear daggers all, for the people's throats? Do
they wave torches all, against the people's workshops?”
The matter seemed to be growing serious, and while two
or three of the conspirators seized Aulus, and compelled
him with gentle violence to desist from farther tumult, Cæ
parius whispered into the ear of Catiline, “This knave
knows far too much. Were it not best three or four of our
friend Crispus' men should knock him on the head?”
“No! no!” cried Catiline—“By Hades! no! It is too
late, I tell you. The whole thing will be settled within
half an hour. There goes the second trumpet.”
And as he spoke, the shrill blast of the brazen instruments
rose piercingly and almost painfully upon the ear;
and the people might be seen collecting themselves rapidly
into the centuries of their tribes, in order to give their
votes in their places, as ascertained by lot.
“And the third”—exclaimed Cassius, joyfully—“Will
give the signal for election!” Catiline interrupted him, as if
fearful that he would say something that should commit the
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party. “But see,” he added, pointing with his hand across
the wide plain toward a little knoll, on which there stood a
group of noble-looking men, surrounded by a multitude of
knights and patricians, “See yonder, how thickly the laticlavian
tunics muster, and the crimson-edged togas of the
nobles—all the knights are there too, methinks. And look!
look the consuls of the year! and my competitors! Come,
my friends, come; we must toward the consul. He is
about to open the comitia.”
“Catiline! Catiline! the people's friend!” again shouted
Caius Crispus; and Bassus took the word, and repeated
it in the shrill quavering accents of old age—“All those
who love the people vote for the people's friend—vote for
the noble Catiline!”
And at once thousands of voices took the cry, “Catiline!
Catiline! Hail, Catiline, that shall be Consul!”
And, in the midst of these triumphant cries, hardened
and proud of heart, and confident of the success of his
blood-thirsty schemes, he hurried forward, accompanied by
Lentulus and his armed satellites, panting already with
anticipated joy, and athirst for slaughter.
But, as he swept along, followed by the faction, a great
body of citizens of the lower orders, decent substantial
men, came crowding toward the Campus, and paused to
inquire the cause of the tumult, which had left its visible
effects in the flushed visages and knotted brows of many
present.
Two or three voices began to relate what had passed;
but the smith Crispus, who had lingered with one or two
of his ruffians, intent to murder the man who had crossed
his chief, so soon as the signal should be given, rudely
broke in, and interrupted them with the old cry, “The
people's friend! All ye who love the people, vote for the
people's friend, vote for the noble Catiline!”
“Had mighty Marius been alive, Marius of Arpinum, or
the great Gracchi, they had cried, `Vote rather for the man
of the people!—vote for Cicero of Arpinum!' ”
“Tush, what knows he of Marius?” replied the smith.
“What knows he of the great Gracchi?” echoed one of
his followers.
“Whether should best know Marius, they who fought
by his side, or they who slew his friends? Who should
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best know the great Gracchi if not Fulvius, the grandson
of that Fulvius Flaccus, who died with them, in the forum,
by the hands of Saturninus?”
“Vote for Catiline! vote for Catiline! friends of the
people!” shouted the smith again, reëchoed by all his savage
and vociferous gang, seeking to drown the voice of
the true man of the people.
“Aye” exclaimed Fulvius, ironically, springing upon
a stone horse-block, thence to address the people, who
shouted “Flaccus! Flaccus!” on all sides. “Live Fulvius
Flaccus! Speak to us, noble Fulvius!”
“Aye!” he exclaimed, “friends of the people, followers
of Marius, vote, if ye be wise men, for the murderer of
his kinsman—for Catiline, who slew Marius Gratidianus!”
“No! no! we will none of them! no Catiline! no follower
of Sylla? To your tribes, men of Rome—to your
tribes!”
The mingled cries waxed wild and terrible; and it was
clear that the popular party was broken, by the bold words
of the speaker, into two bodies, if ever it had been united.
But little cared the conspirators for that, since they had
counted, not upon winning by a majority of tribes, but by
a civic massacre.
And now—even as that roar was the loudest, while
Flaccus in vain strove to gain a hearing, for the third time
the brazen trumpets of the centuries awoke their stirring
symphonies, announcing that the hour had arrived for the
tribes to commence their voting.
Those who were in the secret looked eagerly over the
field. The hour had come—the leader was at their head—
they waited but the signal!
That signal, named by Catiline, in the house of Læca,—
the blood of Cicero!
They saw a mass of men, pressing on like a mighty
wedge through the dense multitude; parting the waves of
the living ocean as a stout galley parts the billows; struggling
on steadily toward the knoll, whereon, amid the magnates
of the land, consulars, senators, and knights, covering
it with the pomp of white and crimson gowns, gemmed
only by the flashing axe-heads of the lictors, stood the
great Consul.
They saw the gladiators forming themselves into a
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separate band, on the slopes of the Janiculum, with a senator's
robe distinct among the dark gray tunics.
Catiline and his clients were not a hundred paces distant
from Cicero, and the assembled nobles. They had
halted! Their hands were busy in the bosom of their
gowns, griping the hilts of their assassin's tools!
Cethegus and his gladiators were not a hundred paces
distant from the bridge-gate of the Janiculum, and the cohort's
bannered eagle.
They, too, had halted! they, too, were forming in battle
order—they too were mustering their breath for the dread
onset—they too were handling their war weapons!
Almost had Caius Crispus, in his mad triumph, shouted
victory.
One moment, and Rome had been the prize for the winner
in the gladiators' battle.
And the notes of the brazen trumpets had not yet died
away, among the echoing hills.
They had not died away, before they were taken up and
repeated, east, west, and north and south, by shriller, more
pervading clangors.
It burst over the heads of the astonished people like heaven's
thunder, the wild prolonged war-flourish of the legions.
From the Tarpeian rock, and the guarded Capitol;
from the rampired Janiculum; from the fortress, beyond
the Island bridge; from the towered steeps of the Quirinal,
broke simultaneously the well known Roman war
note!
Upsprang, along the turreted wall of the Janiculum,
with crested casques, and burnished brazen corslets, and
the tremendous javelins of the cohorts, a long line of Metellus'
legionaries.
Upsprang on the heights of the Capitol, and on each
point of vantage, an answering band of warriors, full armed.
And, last not least, as that warlike din smote the sky,
Cicero, on whom every eye was riveted of that vast concourse,
flung back his toga, and stood forth conspicuous,
armed with a mighty breastplate, and girded with the
sword that won him, at an after day, among the mountains
of Cilicia, the high style of Imperator.
A mighty shout burst from the faithful ranks of the
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knights; and, starting from their scabbards, five thousand
sword-blades flashed in a trusty ring around the savior of
his country.
“Catiline would have murdered Him!” shouted the
voice of Fulvius Flaccus—“Catiline would have burned
your workshops! Catiline would have made himself Dictator,
King! Vote, men of Rome, vote, friends of the people!
vote now, I say, for Catiline!”
Anticipated, frustrated, outwitted, — the conspirators
glared on each other hopeless.
Against forces so combined, what chance of success?
Still, although ruined in his hopes, Catiline bore up
bravely, and with an insolence of hardihood that in a good
cause had been heroism.
Affecting to laugh at the precautions, and sneer at the
pusillanimous mind that had suggested them, he defied
proof, defied suspicion.
There was no overt act—no proof! and Cicero, satisfied
with his triumph—for alarmed beyond measure, and astonished,
all ranks and classes vied with each other in voting
for Silanus and Muræna—took no step to arrest or convict
the ringleaders.
It was a moral, not a physical victory, at which he had
aimed so nobly.
And nobly had he won it.
The views of the conspiracy frustrated; the hearts of its
leaders chilled and thunder-stricken; the loyalty and virtue
of all classes aroused; the eyes of the Roman people
opened to knowledge of their friends; two wise and noble
consuls chosen, by who were on the point of casting their
votes for a murderer and traitor; the city saved from conflagration;
the commonwealth preserved, in all its majesty;
these were the trophies of the Consular Comitia.
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CHAPTER III. THE PERIL.
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Things, bad begun, make strong themselves by ill.
Macbeth.
Sixteen days had elapsed, since the conspirators were
again frustrated at the Consular Comitia.
Yet not for that had the arch-traitor withdrawn his foot
one hair's breadth from his purpose, or paused one moment
in his career of crime and ruin.
There is, beyond doubt, a necessity—not as the ancients
deemed, supernatural, and the work of fate, but a natural
moral necessity—arising from the very quality of crime itself,
which spurs the criminal on to new guilt, fresh atrocity.
In the dark path of wickedness there is no halting place;
the wretched climber must turn his face for ever upward,
for ever onward; if he look backward his fall is inevitable,
his doom fixed.
So was it proved with Catiline. To gain impunity for
his first deed of cruelty and blood, another and another
were forced on him, until at last, harassed and maddened
by the consciousness of untold guilt, his frantic spirit could
find no respite, save in the fierce intoxication of excitement,
the strange delight of new atrocity.
Add to this, that, knowing himself anticipated and discovered,
he knew also that if spared for a time by his opponent,
it was no lack of will, but lack of opportunity
alone to crush him, that held the hands of Cicero inactive.
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Thus, although for a time the energies of his weaker
comrades sank paralysed by the frustration of their schemes,
and by the certainty that they were noted and observed
even in their most secret hours, his stronger and more vehement
spirit found only in the greater danger the greater
stimulus to action.
Sixteen days had elapsed, and gradually, as the conspirators
found that no steps were taken by the government
for their apprehension or punishment, they too waxed
bolder, and began to fancy, in their insolent presumption,
that the republic was too weak or too timid to enforce its
own laws upon undoubted traitors.
All the causes, moreover, which had urged them at first
to councils so desperate, existed undiminished, nay, exaggerated
by delay.
Their debts, their inability to raise those funds which
their boundless profusion rendered necessary, still maddened
them; and to these the consciousness of detected
guilt, and that “necessity which,” in the words of their
chief, “makes even the timid brave,” were superadded.
The people and the Senate, who had all, for a time,
been vehemently agitated by a thousand various emotions
of anger, fear, anxiety, revenge, forgetting, as all popular
bodies are wont to do, the past danger in the present security,
were beginning to doubt whether they had not
been alarmed at a shadow; and were half inclined to question
the existence of any conspiracy, save in the fears of
their Consul.
It was well for Rome at that hour, that there was still in
the commonwealth, a counterpoise to the Democratic Spirit;
which, vehement and energetical beyond all others in
sudden and great emergencies, is ever restless and impatient
of protracted watchfulness and preparation, and lacks
that persistency and resolute endurance which seems peculiar
to aristocratic constitutions.
And now especially were demonstrated these opposite
characteristics; for while the lower orders, and the popular
portion of the Senate, who had been in the first instance
most strenuous in their alarm, and most urgent for strong
measures, were now hesitating, doubting, and almost compassionating
the culprits, who had fallen under such a load
of obloquy, the firmer and more moderate minds, were
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guarding the safety of the commonwealth in secret, and
watching, through their unknown emissaries, every movement
of the traitors.
It was about twelve o'clock at night, on the eighth day
before the Ides, corresponding to our seventh of November,
when the Consul was seated alone in the small but
sumptuous library, which has been described above, meditating
with an anxious and care-worn expression, over
some papers which lay before him on the table.
No sound had been heard in the house for several hours;
all its inhabitants except the Consul only, with the slave
who had charge of the outer door, and one faithful freedman,
having long since retired to rest.
But from without, the wailing of the stormy night-wind
rose and fell in melancholy alternations of wild sobbing
sound, and breathless silence; and the pattering of heavy
rain was distinctly audible on the flat roofs, and in the
flooded tank, or impluvium, which occupied the centre of
the hall.
It was in one of the lulls of the autumnal storm, that a
heavy knock was heard on the pannel of the exterior door,
reverberating in long echoes, through the silent vestibule,
and the vast colonnades of the Atrium and peristyle.
At that dead hour of night, such a summons would have
seemed strange in any season: it was now almost alarming.
Nor, though he was endowed pre-eminently with that
moral strength of mind which is the highest quality of
courage, and was by no means deficient in mere physical
bravery, did Cicero raise his head from the perusal of his
papers, and listen to that unwonted sound, without some
symptoms of anxiety and perturbation.
So thoroughly acquainted as he was, with the desperate
wickedness, the infernal energy, and absolute fearlessness
of Catiline, it could not but occur to him instantly, when
he heard that unusual summons, at a time when all the innocent
world was buried in calm sleep, how easy and obvious
a mode of liberation from all danger and restraint, his
murder would afford to men so daring and unscrupulous,
as those against whom he was playing, for no less a stake
than life or death.
There was, he well knew, but a single slave, and he old
and unarmed, in the vestibule, nor was the aged and
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effeminate Greek freedman, one on whom reliance could be
placed in a deadly struggle.
All these things flashed suddenly upon the mind of Cicero,
as the heavy knocking fell upon his ear, followed by a
murmur of many voices, and the tread of many feet without.
He arose quietly from the bronze arm-chair, on which he
had been sitting, walked across the room, to a recess beside
the book-shelves, and reached down from a hook, on which
it hung, among a collection of armor and weapons, a stout,
straight, Roman broad-sword, with a highly adorned hilt
and scabbard.
Scarcely, however, had he taken the weapon in his hand,
before the door was thrown open, and his freedman ushered
in three men, attired in the full costume of Roman
Senators.
“All hail, at this untimely hour, most noble Cicero,” exclaimed
the first who entered.
“By all the Gods!” cried the second, “rejoiced I am, O
Consul, to see that you are on your guard; for there is
need of watchfulness, in truth, for who love the republic.”
“Which need it is, in short,” added the third, “that has
brought us hither.”
“Most welcome at all times,” answered Cicero, laying
aside the broad-sword with a smile, “though of a truth, I
thought it might be less gracious visitors. Noble Marcellus,
have you good tidings of the commonwealth? and you,
Metellus Scipio, and you Marcus Crassus? Friends to the
state, I know you; and would trust that no ill news hath
held you watchful.”
“Be not too confident of that, my Consul,” replied Scipio.
“Peril there is, at hand to the commonwealth, in your
person.”
“We have strange tidings here, confirming all that you
made known to the Senate, on the twelfth day before the
Calends, in letters left by an unknown man with Crassus'
doorkeeper this evening,” said Marcellus. “We were at
supper with him, when they came, and straightway determined
to accompany him hither.”
“In my person!” exclaimed Cicero—“Then is the peril
threatened from Lucius Sergius Catiline! were it for myself
alone, this were a matter of small moment; but,
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seeing that I hold alone the clues of this dark plot, it were disastrous
to the state, should ought befall me, who have set
my life on this cast to save my country.”
“Indeed disastrous!” exclaimed the wealthy Crassus;
“for these most horrible and cursed traitors are sworn, as
it would seem, to consume this most glorious city of the
earth, and all its stately wealth, with the sword and fire.”
“To destroy all the noble houses,” cried Scipio, “and
place the vile and loathsome rabble at the helm of state.”
“All this, I well knew, of old,” said Cicero calmly.
“But I pray you, my friends, be seated; and let me see
these papers.”
And taking the anonymous letters from the hands of
Crassus, he read them aloud, pausing from time to time,
to meditate on the intention of the writer.
“Marcus Licinius Crassus,” thus ran the first, “is spoken
of by those, who love not Rome, as their lover and trusty
comrade! Doth Marcus Licinius Crassus deem that the
flames, which shall roar over universal Rome, will spare his
houses only? Doth Marcus Crassus hope, that when the
fetters shall be stricken from the limbs of every slave in
Rome, his serfs alone will hold their necks beneath a voluntary
yoke?—Doth he imagine that, when all the gold of
the rich shall be distributed among the needy, his seven
thousand talents shall escape the red hands of Catiline and
his associates? Be wise! Take heed! The noble, who
forsakes his order, earns scorn alone from his new partisans!
When Cicero shall fall, all noble Romans shall perish lamentably,
with him—when the great Capitol itself shall
melt in the conflagration, all private dwellings shall go
down in the common ruin. Take counsel of a friend, true,
though unknown and humble! Hold fast to the republic!
rally the nobles and the rich, around the Consul! Ere the
third day hence, he shall be triumphant, or be nothing!—
Fare thee well!”
“This is mysterious, dark, incomprehensible,” said Cicero,
as he finished reading it. “Had it been sent to me. I
should have read it's secret thus, as intended to awake suspicion,
in my mind, of a brave and noble Roman! a true
friend of his country!” he added, taking the hand of Crassus
in his own. “Yet, even so, it would have failed. For
as soon would I doubt the truth of heaven itself, as
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question the patriotic faith of the conqueror of Spartacus! But
left at thy house, my Crassus, it seems almost senseless and
unmeaning. What have we more?
“The snake is scotched, not slain! The spark is concealed,
not quenched! The knife is sharp yet, though it
lie in the scabbard! When was conspiracy beat down by
clemency, or treason conquered by timidity? Let those
who would survive the ides of November, keep their loins
girded, and their eyes wakeful. What I am, you may not
learn, but this much only—I was a noble, before I was a
beggar! a Roman, before I was a—traitor!”
“Ha!” continued the consul, examining the paper
closely, “This is somewhat more pregnant—the Ides of
November!—the Ides—is it so?—They shall be met withal!—
It is a different hand-writing also; and here is a third—
Ha!”
“A third, plainer than the first,” said Metellus Scipio—
“pray mark it.”
“Three men have sworn—who never swear in vain—a
knight, a senator, and yet a senator again! Two of the
three, Cornelii! Their knives are keen, their hands sure,
their hearts resolute, against the new man from Arpinum!
Let those who love Cicero, look to the seventh day, before
November's Ides.”
“The seventh day—ha? so soon? Be it so,” said the
undaunted magistrate. “I am prepared for any fortune.”
“Consul,” exclaimed the Freedman, again entering, “I
watched with Geta, in the vestibule, since these good fathers
entered; and now there have come two ladies clad
in the sacred garb of vestals. Two lictors wait on them.
They ask to speak with the consul.”
“Admit them, madman!” exclaimed Cicero; “admit
them with all honor. You have not surely kept them in
the vestibule?”
“Not so, my Consul. They are seated on the ivory
chairs in the Tablinum.”
“Pardon me, noble friends. I go to greet the holy virgins.
This is a strange and most unusual honour. Lead
the way, man.”
And with the words, he left the room in evident anxiety
and haste; while his three visitors stood gazing each on
the other, in apprehension mingled with wonder.
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In a few moments, however, he returned alone, very
pale, and wearing on his fine features a singular expression
of awe and dignified self-complacency, which seemed to
be almost at variance with each other.
“The Gods,” he said, as he entered, in a deep and solemn
tone, “the Gods themselves attest Rome's peril by
grand and awful portents. The College of the Vestals
sends tidings, that `The State totters to its fall'!”
“May the Great Gods avert!” cried his three auditors,
simultaneously, growing as pale as death, and faltering out
their words from ashy lips in weak or uncertain accents.
“It is so!” said Cicero; who, though a pure Deist, in
truth, and no believer in Rome's monstrous polytheism,
was not sufficiently emancipated from the superstition of
the age to dispute the truth of prodigies and portents. “It
is so. The priestess, who watched the sacred flame on the
eternal hearth, beheld it leap thrice upward in a clear spire
of vivid and unearthly light, and lick the vaulted roof-stones—
thrice vanish into utter gloom! Once, she believed the
fire extinct, and veiled her head in more than mortal terror.
But, after momentary gloom, it again revived, while
three strange sighs, mightier than any human voice, came
breathing from the inmost shrine, and waved the flame fitfully
to and fro, with a dread pallid lustre. The College
bids the Consul to watch for himself and the republic, these
three days, or ill shall come of it.”
Even as he spoke, a bustle was again heard in the vestibule,
as of a fresh arrival, and again the freedman entered.
“My Consul, a veiled patrician woman craves to confer
with you, in private.”
“Ha! all Rome is afoot, methinks, to-night. Do you
know her, my Glaucias?”
“I saw her once before, my Consul. On the night of
the fearful storm, when the falchion of flame shook over
Rome, and the Senate was convened suddenly.”
“Ha! She! it is well—it is very well! we shall know
all anon.” And his face lighted up joyously, as he spoke.
“Excuse me, Friends and Fathers. This is one privy to
the plot, with tidings of weight doubtless. Thanks for your
news, and good night; for I must pray you leave me.
Your warning hath come in good season, and I will not be
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taken unaware. The Gods have Rome in their keeping,
and, to save her, they will not let me perish. Fare ye
well, nobles. I must be private with this woman.”
After the ceremonial of the time, his visitors departed;
but as they passed through the atrium, they met the lady,
conducted by the old Greek freedman.
Little expecting to meet any one at that untimely hour,
she had allowed her veil to fall down upon her shoulders;
and, although she made a movement to recover it, as she
saw the Senators approaching her by the faint light of the
single lamp which burned before the household gods on
the small altar by the impluvium, Marcus Marcellus caught
a passing view of a pair of large languishing blue eyes,
and a face of rare beauty.
“By the great Gods!” he whispered in Crassus' ear,
“that was the lovely Fulvia.”
“Ha! Curius' paramour!” replied the other. “Can
it be possible that the stern Consul amuses his light hours,
with such high-born harlotry?”
“Not he! not he!” said Scipio. “I doubt not Curius
is one of them! He is needy, and bold, and bloody.”
“But such a braggart!” answered Marcellus.
“I have known braggarts fight,” said Crassus. “There
was a fellow, who served in the fifth legion; he fought before
the standard of the hastati; and I deemed him a coward
ever, but in the last strife with Spartacus he slew six
men with his own hand. I saw it.”
“I have heard of such things,” said Scipio. “But it
grows late. Let us move homeward.” And then he added,
as he was leaving the Consul's door, “If he can trust
his household, Cicero should arm it. My life on it! They
will attempt to murder him.”
“He has given orders even now to arm his slaves,” said
the Freedman, in reply; “and so soon as they have got
their blades and bucklers, I go to invite hither the surest of
his clients.”
“Thou shalt do well to do so—But see thou do it silently.”
And with the words, they hurried homeward through the
dark streets, leaving the wise and virtuous magistrate in
conference with his abandoned, yet trustworthy informant,
Fulvia.
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CHAPTER IV. THE CRISIS.
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He is about it. The doors are open.
Macbeth.
The morning had scarcely dawned, after that dismal
and tempestuous night, when three men were observed by
some of the earlier citizens, passing up the Sacred Way,
toward the Cerolian Place.
It was not so much that the earliness of the hour attracted
the notice of these spectators—for the Romans were a
matutinal people, even in their most effeminate and luxurious
ages, and the sun found few loiterers in their chambers,
when he came forth from his oriental gates—as that
the manner and expression of these men themselves were
singular, and such as might well excite suspicion.
They all walked abreast, two clad in the full garb of
Senators, and one in the distinctive dress of Roman knighthood.
No one had heard them speak aloud, nor seen them
whisper, one to the other. They moved straight onward,
steadily indeed and rather slowly, but with something of
consciousness in their manner, glancing furtively around
them from beneath their bent brows, and sometimes even
casting their eyes over their shoulders, as if to see whether
they were followed.
At about a hundred paces after these three, not however
accompanying them, or attached to their party, so far at
least as appearances are considered, two large-framed fellows,
clothed in the dark gray frocks worn by slaves and
gladiators, came strolling in the same direction.
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These men had the auburn hair, blue eyes, and massive,
if not stolid cast of features peculiar to northern races, at
that time the conquered slaves, though destined soon to be
the victors, of Rome's gigantic power.
When the first three reached the corner of the next
block of buildings, to the corner of that magnificent street
called the Carinœ, they paused for a few moments; and,
after looking carefully about them, to mark whether they
were observed or not, held a short whispered conversation,
which their stern faces, and impassioned gestures seemed
to denote momentous.
While they were thus engaged, the other two came sauntering
along, and passed them by, apparently unheeded, and
without speaking, or saluting them.
Those three men were the knight Caius Cornelius, a
friend and distant kinsman of Cethegus, who was the second
of the number, and Lucius Vargunteius, a Senator,
whose name has descended only to posterity, through the
black infamy of the deed, which he was even at that moment
meditating.
Spurred into action by the menaces and violence of Catiline,
who had now resolved to go forth and commence
open warfare from the entrenched camp prepared in the
Appenines, by Caius Manlius, these men had volunteered,
on the previous night, at a second meeting held in the house
of Læca, to murder Cicero, with their own hands, during
his morning levee.
To this end, they had now come forth thus early, hoping
so to anticipate the visit of his numerous clients, and take
him at advantage, unprepared and defenceless.
Three stout men were they, as ever went forth armed
and determined for premeditated crime; stout in frame,
stout of heart, invulnerable by any physical apprehension,
unassailable by any touch of conscience, pitiless, fearless,
utterly depraved.
Yet there was something in their present enterprise, that
half daunted them. Something in the character of the
man, whom they were preparing to assassinate—something
of undefined feeling, suggesting to them the certainty of
the whole world's reproach and scorn through everlasting
ages, however present success “might trammel up the consequence.”
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Though they would not have confessed it to their own
hearts, they were reluctant toward their task; and this unadmitted
reluctance it was, which led them to pause and
parley, under the show of arranging their schemes, which
had in truth been fully organized on the preceding night.
They were too far committed, however, to recede; and
it is probable that no one of them, although their hearts
were full almost to suffocation, as they neared the good Consul's
door, had gone so far as to think of withdrawing his
hand from the deed of blood.
The outer door of the vestibule was open; and but one
slave was stationed in the porch; an old man quite unarmed,
not having so much even as a porter's staff, who was sitting
on a stone bench, in the morning sunshine.
As the conspirators ascended the marble steps, which
gave access to the vestibule, and entered the beautiful Tuscan
colonnade, the two Germans, who had stopped and
looked back for a moment, seeing them pass in, set off as
hard as they could run, through an adjoining street toward
the house of Catiline, which was not very far distant.
It was not long ere they reached it, and entered without
question or hindrance, as men familiar and permitted.
In a small room, adjoining the inner peristyle, the master
of the house was striding to and fro across the tesselated
floor, in a state of perturbation, extreme even for him;
whose historian has described him with bloodless face,
and evil eyes, irregular and restless motions, and the impress
of frantic guilt, ever plain to be seen in his agitated
features.
Aurelia Orestilla sat near him, on a low cushioned stool,
with her superb Italian face livid and sicklied by unusual
dread. Her hands lay tightly clasped upon her knee—her
lips were as white as ashes. Her large lustrous eyes, burning
and preternaturally distended, were fixed on the haggard
face of her husband, and followed him, as he strode
up and down the room in impotent anxiety and expectation.
Yet she, privy as she was to all his blackest councils, the
instigator and rewarder of his most hideous crime, knowing
the hell of impotent agony that was consuming his
heart, she dared not address him with any words of hope
or consolation.
At such a crisis all ordinary phrases of comfort or
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cheering love, seem but a mockery to the spirit, which can find
no rest, until the doubts that harass it are ended; and this
she felt to be the case, and, had her own torturing expectation
allowed her to frame any speech to soothe him, she
would not have ventured on its utterance, certain that it
would call forth a torrent of imprecation on her head, perhaps
a burst of violence against her person.
The very affections of the wicked, are strangely mixed
at times, with more discordant elements; and it would have
been a hard question to solve, whether that horrible pair
most loved or hated one another.
The woman's passions, strange to relate, had been kindled
at times, by the very cruelty and fury, which at other
moments made her almost detest him. There was a species
of sublimity in the very atrocity of Catiline's wickedness,
which fascinated her morbid and polluted fancy; and
she almost admired the ferocity which tortured her, and
from which, alone of mortal ills, she shrank appalled and
unresisting.
And Catiline loved her, as well as he could love anything,
loved her the more because she too, in some sort, had elicited
his admiration; for she had crossed him many times,
and once braved him, and, alone of human beings, he had
not crushed her.
They were liker to mated tigers, which even in their raptures
of affection, rend with the fang, and clutch with the
unsheathed talon, until the blood and anguish testify the
fury of their passion, than to beings of human mould and
nature.
Suddenly the traitor stopped short in his wild and agitated
walk, and seemed to listen intently, although no sound
came to the ears of the woman, who was no less on the
alert than he, for any stir or rumor.
“It is”—he said at length, clasping his hands above his
head—“it is the step of Arminius, the trusty gladiator—
do you not hear it, Orestilla?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head doubtfully. “There
is no sound at all. My ear is quicker of hearing, too, than
yours, Catiline, and if there were any step, I should be first
to mark it.”
“Tush! woman!” he made answer, glaring upon her
fiercely. “It is my hear that hears it.”
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“You have a heart, then!” she replied bitterly, unable
even at that time to refain from taunting him.
“And a hand also, and a dagger! and, by Hell and all
its furies! I know not why I do not flesh it in you. I will
one day.”
“No, you will not,” she answered very quietly.
“And wherefore not? I have done many a worse deed
in my day. The Gods would scarce punish me for that
slaughter; and men might well call it justice.—Wherefore
not, I say? Do you think I so doat on your beauty, that I
cannot right gladly spare you?”
“Because,” answered the woman, meeting his fixed
glare, with a glance as meaning and as fiery, “because,
when I find that you meditate it, I will act quickest. I
know a drug or two, and an unguent of very sovereign virtue.”
“Ha! ha!” The reckless profligate burst into a wild
ringing laugh of triumphant approbation. “Ha! ha! thou
mightst have given me a better reason. Where else should
I find such a tigress? By all the Gods! it is your clutch
and claws that I prize, more than your softest and most
rapturous caress! But hist! hist! now—do you not hear
that step?”
“I do—I do,” she replied, clasping her hands again,
which she had unclinched in her anger—“and it is Arminius'
step! I was wrong to cross thee, Catiline; and thou
so anxious! we shall hear now—we shall hear all.”
Almost as she spoke, the German gladiator rushed into the
room, heated and panting from his swift race; and, without
any sign of reverence or any salutation, exclaimed abruptly,
“Catiline, it is over, ere this time! I saw them enter his
house!”
The woman uttered a low choking shriek, her face
flushed crimson, and then again turned paler than before,
and she fell back on her cushioned seat, swooning with joy
at the welcome tidings.
But Catiline flung both his arms abroad toward heaven,
and cried aloud—“Ye Gods, for once I thank ye! if there
be Gods indeed!” he added, with a sneer—“thou sawest
them enter, ha?—thou art not lying?—By all the furies!
If you deceive me, I will take care that you see nothing
more in this world.”
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“Catiline, these eyes saw them!”
“At length! at length!” he exclaimed, his eye flashing,
and his whole countenance glowing with fiendish animation,
“and yet curses upon it!—that I could not slay him—
that I should owe to any other hand my vengeance on
my victim. Thou hast done well—ha! here is gold, Arminius!
the last gold I own—but what of that, to-morrow—
to-morrow, I will have millions! Away! away! bold
heart, arouse your friends and followers—to arms, to arms,
cry havoc through the streets, and liberty and vengeance!”
While he was speaking yet, the door was again opened,
and Cethegus entered with the others, dull, gloomy, and
crest-fallen; but Catiline was in a state of excitement so
tremendous, that he saw nothing but the men.
At one bound he reached Cethegus, and catching him by
both hands—“How!” he exclaimed—“How was it?—
quick, tell me, quick! Did he die hard? Did he die, conscious,
in despair, in anguish?—Tell me, tell me, you tortured
him in the slaying—tell me, he died a coward, howling
and cursing fate, and knowing that I, I slew him, and—
speak Cethegus?—speak, man! By the Gods! you
are pale! silent!—these are not faces fit for triumph!
speak, man, I say, how died he?—show me his blood, Cethegus!
you have not wiped it from your dagger, give me
the blade, that I may kiss away the precious death-drops.”
So rapidly and impetuously had he spoken, heaping query
on query, that Cethegus could not have answered, if he
would. But, to say the truth, he was in little haste to do
so. When Catiline ceased, however, which he did at
length, from actual want of breath to enquire farther, he
answered in a low smothered voice.
“He is not dead at all—he refused”—
“Not dead!” shrieked Catiline, for it was a shriek,
though articulate, and one so piercing that it roused Aurelia
from her swoon of joy—“Not dead! Yon villain swore
that he saw you enter—not dead!” he repeated, half incredulously—
“By heaven and hell! I believe you are
jesting with me! Tell me that you have lied, and I—I—
I will worship you, Cethegus.”
“His porter refused us entrance, and, as the door was
opened, we saw in the Atrium the slaves of his household,
and half a hundred of his clients, all armed from head to
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foot, with casque and corslet, pilum, broad-sword, and
buckler. And, to complete the tale, as we returned into
the street baffled and desperate, a window was thrown open
in the banquet-hall above, and we might see the Consul,
with Cato, and Marcellus, and Scipio, and a score of Consulars
beside, gazing upon us in all the triumph of security,
in all the confidence of success. We are betrayed, that
is plain—our plans are all known as soon as they are taken,
all frustrated ere acted! All is lost, Catiline, for what remains
to do?”
“To dare!” answered the villain, all undaunted even by
this reverse—“and, if need be, to die—but to despair, never!”
“But who can be the traitor?—where shall we look to
find him?”
“Look there,” exclaimed Catiline, pointing to the German
gladiator, who stood all confounded and chap-fallen.
“Look there, and you shall see one; and see him punished
too! What ho! without there, ho! a dozen of you, if you
would shun the lash!”
And, at the summons, ten or twelve slaves and freedmen
rushed into the room in trepidation, almost in terror, so
savage was the temper of the lord whom they served, and
so merciless his wrath, at the most trivial fault or error.
“Drag that brute, hence!” he said, waving his hand toward
the unhappy gladiator, “put out his eyes, fetter him
foot and hand, and cast him to the congers in the fishpond.”
Without a moment's pause or hesitation, they cast themselves
upon their miserable comrade; and, though he struggled
furiously, and struck down two or three of the foremost,
and shouted himself hoarse, in fruitless efforts to explain,
he was secured, and bound and gagged, within a
shorter time than is required to describe it.
This done, one of the freedmen looked toward his
dreaded master, and asked, with pale lips, and a faltering
voice,
“Alive, Catiline?”
“Alive—and hark you, Sirrah, fasten his head above the
water, that he die not too speedily. Those biggest congers
will lug him manfully, Cethegus; we will go see the
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sport, anon. It will serve to amuse us, after this disappointment.
There! away with him, begone!”
The miserable creature struggled desperately in his
bonds, but in vain; and strove so terribly to speak, in despite
his gag, that his face turned almost black, from the
blood which rushed to every pore; but no sound could he
utter, as he was dragged away, save a deep-mouthed groan,
which was drowned by the laughter of the remorseless
wretches, who gazed on his anguish with fiendish merriment;
among which, hideous to relate, the thrilling sounds
of Aurelia's silvery and contagious mirth were distinctly
audible.
“He will take care to see more truly in Hades!” said
Catiline, with his sardonic smile, as he was dragged out of
the room, by his appalled and trembling fellows. “But
now to business. Tell me, did you display any weapon?
or do aught, that can be proved, to show your intent on the
Consul?”
“Nothing, my Catiline,” replied Cethegus, firmly.
“Nothing, indeed, Cethegus? By all our hopes! deceive
me not!”
“By your head! nothing, Catiline.”
“Then I care nothing for the failure!” answered the
other. “Keep good hearts, and wear smiling faces! I
will kill him myself to-morrow, if, like the scorpion, I must
die in the deed.”
“Try it not, Catiline. You will but fail—and”—
“Fail! who ever knew me fail, in vengeance?”
“No one!” said Orestilla—“and no one can hinder you
of it. No! not the Gods!”
“There are no Gods!” exclaimed the Traitor, “and if
there be, it were all one—I defy them!”
“Cicero says there is ONE, they tell me,” said Cethegus,
half mocking, half in earnest—“and he is very wise.”
“Very!” replied the other, with his accustomed sneer—
“Therefore that ONE may save him—if he can!”
“The thing is settled,” cried Aurelia Orestilla, “I told
him yesterday he ought to do it, himself—I should not be
content, unless Catiline's hand dealt him the death blow,
Catiline's eye gloated upon him in the death-struggle, Catiline's
tongue jeered him in the death-pang!”
“You love him dearly, Orestilla,” said Cethegus.
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“And dearly he has earned it,” she replied.
“By Venus! I would give half my hopes, to see him
kiss you.”
“And I, if my lips had the hydra's venom. But come,
she added, with a wreathed smile and a beaming eye,
“Let us go see the fishes eat yon varlet; else shall we be
too late for the sport.”
“Rare sport!” said Cethegus, “I have not seen a man
eaten, by a tiger even, these six months past; and by a fish,
I think, never!”
“The fish do it better,” replied Catiline—“Better, and
cleaner—they leave the prettiest skeleton you can imagine—
they are longer about it, you will say—True; but I do
not grudge the time.”
“No! no! the longer, the merrier!” said Aurelia,
laughing melodiously—“The last fellow I saw given to
the tigers, had his head crushed like a nut-shell, by a single
blow. He had not time to shriek even once. There was
no fun in that, you know.”
“None indeed,” said Cethegus—“but I warrant you this
German will howl gloriously, when the fish are at him.”
“Yes! yes!” exclaimed the lovely woman, clapping her
hands joyously. “We must have the gag removed, to give
free vent to his music. Come, come, I am dying to see
him.”
“Some one must die, since Cicero did not.”
“Happy fellow this, if he only knew it, to give his
friends so much pleasure!”
“One of them such a fair lady too!”
“Will there be more pleasure, think you, in seeing the
congers eat the gladiator, or in eating the congers afterward?”
“Oh! no comparison! one can eat fat congers always.”
“We have the advantage of them truly, for they cannot
always eat fat gladiators.”
And they walked away with as much glee and expectation,
to the scene of agony and fiendish torture, vitiated by
the frightful exhibitions of the circus and the arena, as men
in modern days would feel, in going to enjoy the fictitious
sorrows of some grand tragedian.
Can it be that the contemplation of human wo, in some
form or other, is in all ages grateful to poor corrupt humanity?
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CHAPTER V. THE ORATION.
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Quousque tandem abutere—
Cicero.
The Senate was assembled in the great temple on the
Palatine, built on the spot where Jupiter, thence hailed as
Stator, had stayed the tide of flight, and sent the rallied
Romans back to a glorious triumph.
A cohort was stationed on the brow of the hill, its spear-heads
glancing in the early sunshine.
The Roman knights, wearing their swords openly, and
clad in their girded tunics only, mustered around the steps
which led to the colonnade and doors of the temple, a voluntary
guard to the good consul.
A mighty concourse had flowed together from all quarters
of the city, and stood in dense masses in all the neighboring
streets, and in the area of the temple, in hushed
and anxious expectation.
The tribunes of the people, awed for once by the imminence
of the peril, forgot to be factious.
Within the mighty building, there was dead silence—
silence more eloquent than words.
For, to the wonder of all men, undismayed by detection,
unrebuked by the horror and hate which frowned on him
from every brow, Catiline had assumed his place on the
benches of his order.
Not one, even of his most intimate associates, had dared
to salute him; not one, even of the conspirators, had dared
to recognize the manifest traitor.
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As he assumed his place, the senators next to him had
arisen and withdrawn from the infamous vicinity, some of
them even shaking their gowns, as if to dissipate the contamination
of his contact.
Alone he sat, therefore, with a wide vacant space around
him—alone, in that crowded house—alone, yet proud, unrebuked,
undaunted.
The eyes of every man in the vast assembly were riveted
in fear, or hatred, or astonishment, on the set features and
sullen scowling brow, of the arch conspirator.
Thus sat they, thus they gazed for ten minutes' space,
and so deep was the all-absorbing interest, that none observed
the Consul, who had arisen to his feet before the
curule chair, until the great volume of his clear sonorous
voice rolled over them, like the burst of sudden thunder
amid the hush of nature which precedes it.
It was to no set form of words, to no premeditated
speech, that he gave utterance; nor did he in the usual
form address the Conscript Fathers.
With his form drawn to its fullest height, his arm out-stretched
as if it was about to launch the thunderbolt, he
hurled his impassioned indignation against the fearless culprit.
“Until how long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience?
Until how long, too, will thy frantic fury baffle
us? Unto what extremity will thy unbridled insolence
display itself? Do the nocturnal guards upon the Palatine
nothing dismay you, nothing the watches through the
city, nothing the terrors of the people, nothing the concourse
hitherward of all good citizens, nothing this most
secure place for the senate's convocation, nothing the eyes
and faces of all these?” And at the words, he waved both
arms slowly around, pointing the features and expression
of every senator, filled with awe and aversion.
“Dost thou not feel that all thy plots are manifest? Not
see that thy conspiracy was grasped irresistibly, so soon as
it was known thoroughly to all these? Which of us dost
thou imagine ignorant of what thou didst, where thou wert,
whom thou didst convoke, what resolution thou didst take
last night, and the night yet preceding? Oh! ye changed
Times! Oh, ye degenerate customs! The Senate comprehends
these things, the Consul sees them! Yet this
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man lives! Lives, did I say? Yea, indeed, comes into
the Senate, bears a part in the public councils, marks out
with his eyes and selects every one of us for slaughter.
But we, strenuous brave men, imagine that we do our duty
to the state, so long as we escape the frenzy, the daggers
of that villain. Long since it had been right, Catiline, that
thou shouldst have been led to death by the Consul's mandate—
Long since should that doom have been turned upon
thyself, which thou hast been so long devising for all of
us here present. Do I err, saying this? or did that most
illustrious man, Publius Scipio, pontifex maximus, when
in no magisterial office, take off Tiberius Gracchus, for
merely disturbing the established order of the state? And
shall we, Consuls, endure Catiline aiming to devastate the
world with massacre and conflagration? For I omit to
state, as too ancient precedents, how Caius Servilius Ahala
slew with his own hand Spurius Melius, when plotting revolution!
There was, there was, of old, that energy of
virtue in this commonwealth, that brave men hedged the
traitorous citizen about with heavier penalties than the
most deadly foe! We hold a powerful and weighty decree
of the Senate against thee, O Catiline. Neither the
counsel nor the sanction of this order have been wanting
to the republic. We, we, I say it openly, we Consuls are
wanting in our duty.
“The Senate decreed once, that Lucius Opimius, then
Consul, should see THAT THE REPUBLIC TOOK NO HARM;
not one night intervened. Caius Gracchus was slain on
mere suspicions of sedition, the son of a most noble father,
most noble grandfather, most noble ancestry. Marcus Fulvius,
a consular, was slain with both his children. By a
like decree of the Senate, the charge of the republic was
committed to Caius Marius and Lucius Valerius, the Consuls—
did the republic's vengeance delay the death of Lucius
Saterninus, a tribune of the people, of Caius Servilius,
a prætor, even a single day? And yet, we Consuls,
suffer the edge of this authority to be blunted, until the
twentieth day. For we have such a decree of the Senate,
but hidden in the scroll which contains it, as a sword undrawn
in its scabbard. By which decree it were right, O
Catiline, that thou shouldst have been slaughtered on the
instant. Thou livest; and livest not to lay aside, but to
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confirm and strengthen thine audacity. I desire, O Conscript
fathers, to be merciful; I desire, too, in such jeopardy
of the republic, not to seem culpably neglectful. Yet I
condemn myself of inability, of utter weakness. There
is a camp in Italy! hostile to the republic, in the defiles
that open on Etruria! Daily the numbers of the foe are
increasing! And yet the general of that camp, the leader
of that foe, we see within the walls, aye, even in the
Senate, day by day, plotting some intestine blow against
the state. Were I to order thee to be arrested, to be slain
now, O Catiline, I should have cause, I think, to dread the
reproaches of all good citizens, for having stricken thee too
late, rather than that of one, for having stricken thee too severely.
And yet, that which should have been done long
ago, I am not yet for a certain reason persuaded to do now.
Then—then at length—will I slay thee, when there is not
a man so base, so desperately wicked, so like to thee in character,
but he shall own thy slaying just. So long as there
shall be one man, who dares to defend thee, thou shalt
live. And thou shalt live, as now thou livest, beset on every
side by numerous, and steady guards, so that thou canst
not even stir against the commonwealth. The eyes moreover,
and the ears of many, even as heretofore, shall spy
thee out at unawares, and mount guard on thee in private.
“For what is there, Catiline, which thou now canst expect
more, if neither night with all its darkness, could conceal
thy unholy meetings, nor even the most private house
contain within its walls the voice of thy conspiracy? If
all thy deeds shine forth, burst into public view? Change
now that hideous purpose, take me along as thy adviser,
forget thy schemes of massacre, of conflagration. Thou
art hemmed in on every side. Thy every council is more
clear to me than day; and these thou canst now review
with me. Dost thou remember, how I stated in the Senate,
on the twelfth day before the Calends of November, (1)
that Caius Manlius, the satellite and co-minister of thy
audacity, would be in arms on a given day, which day
would be the sixth (2) before the Calends of November!—
Did I err, Catiline, not in the fact, so great as it
was, so atrocious, so incredible, but, what is much more
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wondrous, in the very day? Again I told thee in the
Senate, that thou hadst conspired to slay the first men of
the state, on the fifth (1) day before the Calends of November,
when many leading men of Rome quitted the city,
not so much to preserve their lives, as to mar thy councils.
Canst thou deny that thou wert hemmed in on that day by
my guards, and hindered by my vigilance from stirring thy
hand against the state, when, frustrate by the departure of
the rest, thou saidst that our blood, ours who had remained
behind, would satisfy thee? What? When thou wert so
confident of seizing Præneste, by nocturnal escalade,
upon the very (2) Calends of November, didst thou not
feel that it was by my order that colony was garrisoned,
guarded, watched, impregnable?—Thou doest nothing,
plottest nothing, thinkest nothing which I shall not—I say
not—hear—but shall not see, shall not conspicuously comprehend.
“Review with me now, the transactions of the night before
the last, so shalt thou understand that I watch far more
vigilantly for the safety, than thou for the destruction of
the state. I say that on that former night, (3) thou didst
go to the street of the Scythemakers, I will speak plainly,
to the house of Marcus Læca; that thou didst meet there
many of thy associates in crime and madness. Wilt thou
dare to deny it? Why so silent? If thou deniest, I will
prove it. For I see some of those here, here in the Senate,
who were with thee. Oh! ye immortal Gods! in what
region of the earth do we dwell? in what city do we live?
of what republic are we citizens? Here! they are here,
in the midst of us, Conscript Fathers, here in this council,
the most sacred, the most solemn of the universal world,
who are planning the slaughter of myself, the slaughter of
you all, planning the ruin of this city, and therein the ruin
of the world. I the consul, see these men, and ask their
opinions on state matters. Nay, those whom it were but
justice to slaughter with the sword, I refrain as yet from
wounding with a word. Thou wert therefore in the house
of Læca, on that night, O Catiline. Thou didst allot the
districts of Italy; thou didst determine whither each one
of thy followers should set forth; thou didst choose whom
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thou wouldst lead along with thee, whom leave behind;
thou didst assign the wards of the city for conflagration;
thou didst assert that ere long thou wouldst go forth in person;
thou saidst there was but one cause why thou shouldst
yet delay a little, namely, that I was alive. Two Roman
knights were found, who offered themselves to liberate thee
from that care, and promised that they would butcher me,
that very night, a little before daylight, in my own bed. Of
all these things I was aware, when your assembly was
scarce yet broken up. I strengthened my house, and guarded
it with an unwonted garrison. I refused admittance
to those whom thou hadst sent to salute me, when they
arrived; even as I had predicted to many eminent men
that they would arrive, and at that very time.
“Since then these things stand thus, O Catiline, proceed
as thou hast begun; depart when thou wilt from the city;
the gates are open; begone; too long already have those
camps of Manlius lacked their general. Lead forth, with
the morrow, all thy men—if not all, as many at least as
thou art able; purify the city of thy presence. Thou wilt
discharge me from great terror, so soon as a wall shall be interposed
between thee and me. Dwell among us thou
canst, now no longer. I will not endure, I will not suffer,
I will not permit it! Great thanks must be rendered to the
immortal Gods, and to this Stator Jove, especially, the ancient
guardian of this city, that we have escaped so many
times already this plague, so foul, so horrible, so fraught
with ruin to the republic. Not often is the highest weal
of a state jeoparded in the person of a single individual.
So long as you plotted against me, merely as Consul elect,
O Catiline, I protected myself, not by public guards, but
by private diligence. When at the late Comitia, thou
wouldst have murdered me, presiding as Consul in the Field
of Mars, with thy competitors, I checked thy nefarious
plans, by the protection and force of my friends, without
exciting any public tumult.—In a word, as often as thou
hast thrust at me, myself have I parried the blow, although
I perceived clearly, that my fall was conjoined with dread
calamity to the republic. Now, now, thou dost strike
openly at the whole commonwealth, the dwellings of the
city; dost summon the temples of the Immortal Gods,
the lives of all citizens, in a word, Italy herself, to havoc
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and perdition. Wherefore--seeing that as yet, I dare not
do what should be my first duty, what is the ancient and
peculiar usage of this state, and in accordance with the
discipline of our fathers—I will, at least, do that which in
respect to security is more lenient, in respect to the common
good, more useful. For should I command thee to
be slain, the surviving band of thy conspirators would settle
down in the republic; but if—as I have been long exhorting
thee, thou wilt go forth, the vast and pestilent contamination
of thy comrades will be drained out of the city.
What is this, Catiline? Dost hesitate to do that, for my
bidding, which of thine own accord thou wert about doing?
The Consul commands the enemy to go forth from
the state. Dost thou enquire of me, whether into exile?
I do not order, but, if thou wilt have my counsel, I advise
it.
“For what is there, O Catiline, that can delight thee any
longer in this city, in which there is not one man, without
thy band of desperadoes, who does not fear, not one who
does not hate thee?--What brand of domestic turpitude
is not burnt in upon thy life? What shame of private
bearing clings not to thee, for endless infamy? What
scenes of impure lust, what deeds of daring crime, what
horrible pollution attaches not to thy whole career?—To
what young man, once entangled in the meshes of thy corruption,
hast thou not tendered the torch of licentiousness,
or the steel of murder? Must I say more? Even of late,
when thou hadst rendered thy house vacant for new nuptials,
by the death of thy late wife, didst thou not overtop
that hideous crime, by a crime more incredible? which I
pass over, and permit willingly to rest in silence, lest it be
known, that in this state, guilt so enormous has existed,
and has not been punished. I pass over the ruin of thy
fortunes, which all men know to be impending on the
next (1) Ides, I proceed to those things which pertain not
to the private infamy of thy career, not to thy domestic
difficulties and baseness, but to the supreme safety of the
state, and to the life and welfare of us all. Can the light
of this life, the breath of this heaven, be grateful to thee,
Catiline, when thou art conscious that not one of these but
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knows how thou didst stand armed in the comitium, on the
day previous (2) to the calends of January, when Lepidus
and Tullus were the Consuls? That thou hadst mustered
a band of assassins to slay the Consuls, and the noblest of
the citizens? That no relenting of thy heart, no faltering
from fear, opposed thy guilt and frenzy, but the wonted
good fortune of the commonwealth? And now I pass
from these things, for neither are these crimes not known
to all, nor have there not been many more recently committed.
How many times hast not thou thrust at me while
elect, how many times when Consul? How many thrusts
of thine so nearly aimed, that they appeared inevitable;
have I not shunned by a slight diversion, and, as they say of
gladiators, by the movements of my body? Thou doest
nothing, attemptest nothing, plannest nothing, which can
escape my knowledge, at the moment, when I would know
it. Yet thou wilt neither cease from endeavoring nor
from plotting. How many times already hath that dagger
been wrested from thy hand? how many times hath it fallen
by chance, and escaped thy grasp? Still thou canst
not be deprived of it, more than an instant's space!—And
yet, I know not with what unhallowed rites it has been
consecrated and devoted by thee, that thou shouldst deem
it necessary to flesh it in the body of a Consul.
“Now then, what life is this of thine? For I will now
address thee, not so that I may seem moved by that detestation
which I feel toward thee, but by compassion, no portion
of which is thy due. But a moment since, thou didst
come into the Senate, and which one man, from so vast a
concourse, from thine own chosen and familiar friends, saluted
thee? If this has befallen no one, within the memory
of man, wilt thou await loud contumely, condemned
already by the most severe sentence of this silence? What
wouldst thou have, when all those seats around thee were
left vacant on thy coming? When all those Consulars,
whom thou so frequently hadst designated unto slaughter,
as soon as thou didst take thy seat, left all that portion of
the benches bare and vacant? With what spirit, in one
word, can thou deem this endurable? By Hercules! did
my slaves so dread me, as all thy fellow citizens dread thee,
I should conceive it time for leaving my own house—dost
thou not hold it time to leave this city?—And if I felt
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self without just cause suspected, and odious to my countrymen,
I should choose rather to be beyond the reach of their
vision, than to be gazed upon by hostile eyes of all men.
Dost thou hesitate, when conscious of thine own crimes
thou must acknowledge that the hate of all is just, and
due long ago—dost thou, I say, hesitate to avoid the presence
and the sight of those whose eyes and senses thine
aspect every day is wounding? If thine own parents
feared and hated thee, and could by no means be reconciled,
thou wouldst, I presume, withdraw thyself somewhither
beyond the reach of their eyes—now thy country,
which is the common parent of us all, dreads and detests
thee, and has passed judgment on thee long ago, as meditaing
nothing but her parricide. Wilt thou now neither revere
her authority, nor obey her judgment, nor yet dread her
violence? Since thus she now deals with thee, Catiline,
thus speaks to thee in silence.
“ `No deed of infamy hath been done in these many
years, unless through thee—no deed of atrocity without
thee—to thee alone, the murder of many citizens, to
thee alone the spoliation and oppression of our allies,
hath been free and unpunished. Thou hast been powerful
not only to escape laws and prosecutions, but openly
to break through and overturn them. To these things,
though indeed intolerable, I have submitted as best I
might—but it can now no longer be endured that I should
be in one eternal dread of thee only—that Catiline, on what
alarm soever, alone should be the source of terror—that
no treason against me can be imagined, such as should be
revolting to thy desperate criminality. Wherefore begone,
and liberate me from this terror, so that, if true, I may not
be ruined; if false I may at least shake with fear no longer.
'
“If thy country should thus, as I have said, parley with
thee, should she not obtain what she demands, even if she
lack force to compel it? What more shall I say, when
thou didst offer thyself to go into some private custody?
What, when to shun suspicion, thou didst profess thy willingness
to take up thy residence under the roof of Manius
Lepidus? Refused by whom, thou hadst audacity to
come to me, and request that I would admit thee to my
house. And when thou didst receive from me this answer,
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that I could not exist within the same house with that man,
whose presence even inside the same city walls, I esteemed
vast peril to my life, thou didst then go to the prætor Quintus
Metellus; and, then, repulsed by him, to Marcus Marcellus,
thine own comrade, a virtuous man truly, one whom
past doubt thou didst deem likely to be most vigilant in
guarding, most crafty in suspecting, most strenuous in
bringing thee to justice. And how far shall that man be
believed distant from deserving chains and a dungeon, who
judges himself to be worthy of safekeeping?—Since, then,
these things are so, dost hesitate, O Catiline, since here
thou canst not tarry with an equal mind, to depart for
some other land, and give that life, rescued from many just
and deserved penalties, to solitude and exile? `Lay the
matter,' thou sayest, `before the Senate,' for that it is which
thou requirest, `and if this order shall command thee into
banishment, thou wilt obey their bidding.' I will not lay it
before them—for to do so is repugnant to my character,
yet I will so act, that thou shalt clearly see what these think
of thee. Depart from the city, Catiline! Deliver the
state from terror! begone into banishment, if that be the
word for which thou tarriest!”
Then the great Orator paused once again, not to breathe,
though the vehement and uninterrupted torrent of his eloquence,
might well have required an interval of rest, but
to give the confounded listener occasion to note the feelings
of the assembled Senate, perfectly in accordance with
his words.
It was but a moment, however, that he paused, and, that
ended, again burst out the thunderous weight of his magnificent
invective.
“What means this, Catiline? Dost thou note these, dost
thou observe their silence? They permit my words, they
are mute. Why dost thou wait that confirmation of their
words, which thou seest given already by their silence?
But had I spoken these same words to that admirable youth
Publius Sextius, or to that very valiant man, Marcus Marcellus,
I tell thee that this very Senate would have, already,
in this very temple, laid violent hands on me, the Consul,
and that too most justly! But with regard to thee, when
quiescent they approve, when passive they decree, when
mute they cry aloud! Nor these alone, whose authority
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it seems is very dear, whose life most cheap, in your eyes,
but all those Roman knights do likewise, most honorable
and most worthy men, and all those other valiant citizens,
who stand about the Senate house, whose dense ranks
thou couldst see, whose zeal thou couldst discover, whose
patriotic cries thou couldst hear, but a little while ago;
whose hands and weapons I have scarcely, for a long time,
restrained from thee, whom I will yet induce to escort thee
to the gates of Rome, if thou wilt leave this city, which
thou hast sought so long to devastate and ruin.
“And yet what say I? Can it be hoped that anything
should ever bend thee? that thou shouldst ever be reformed?
that thou shouldst dream of any flight? that thou
shouldst contemplate any exile? Would, would indeed
that the immortal Gods might give thee such a purpose!
And yet I perceive, if astounded by my voice thou shouldst
bend thy spirit to go into voluntary exile, how vast a storm
of odium would hang over me, if not at this present time,
when the memory of thy villanies is recent, at least from
the passions of posterity. But to me it is worth this sacrifice,
so that the storm burst on my individual head, and be
connected with no perils to the state. But that thou
shouldst be moved by thine own vices, that thou shouldst
dread the penalties of the law, that thou shouldst yield to
the exigences of the republic, this indeed is not to be expected;
for thou art not such an one, O Catiline, that any
sense of shame should ever recall thee from infamy, any
sense of fear from peril, any glimmering of reason from insanity.
Wherefore, as I have said many times already,
go forth from among us; and if thou wouldst stir up against
me, as constantly thou sayest, against me thine enemy
a storm of enmity and odium, then begone straightway
into exile. Scarcely shall I have power to endure the
clamors of the world, scarcely shall I have power to susvain
the burthen of that odium, if thou wilt but go into voluntary
banishment, now, at the consul's bidding. If, on
the contrary, thou wouldst advance my glory and my reputation,
then go forth with thy lawless band of ruffians!
Betake thyself to Manlius! stir up the desperate citizens
to arms! withdraw thyself from all good men! levy war
on thy country! exult in unhallowed schemes of robbery
and murder, so that thou shalt not pass for one driven forth
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by my tyranny into the arms of strangers, but for one joining
by invitation his own friends and comrades. Yet why
should I invite thee, when I well know that thy confederates
are sent forth already, who nigh Forum Aurelium
shall wait in arms for your arrival? When I well know
that thou hast already a day promised and appointed
whereon to join the camp of Manlius? When I well know
that the silver eagle hath been prepared already—the silver
eagle which will, I trust, prove ruinous and fatal to
thee and all thine host, to which a shrine has been established
in thine own house, thy villanies its fitting incense?
For how shalt thou endure its absence any longer, thou
who wert wont to adore it, setting forth to sacrilege and
slaughter, thou who so often hast upraised that impious
right hand of thine from its accursed altars to murder citizens
of Rome?
“At length, then, at length, thou must go forth, whither
long since thy frantic and unbridled passions have impelled
thee. Nor shall this war against thy country vex or
afflict thee. Nay, rather shall it bring to thee a strange
and unimaginable pleasure, for to this frantic career did
nature give thee birth, to this hath thine own inclination
trained, to this, fortune preserved thee—for never hast thou
wished—I say not peaceful leisure—but war itself, unless
that war were sacrilegious. Thou hast drawn together
from the most infamous of wretches, wretches abandoned
not only by all fortune, but all hope, a bodyguard of desperadoes!
Among these what pleasure wilt thou not experience,
in what bliss not exult, in what raptures not
madly revel, when thou shalt neither see nor hear one virtuous
man in such a concourse of thy comrades? To this,
this mode of life tended all those strenuous toils of thine,
which are so widely talked of—to lie on the bare ground,
not lying in wait merely for some occasion of adultery,
but for some opportunity of daring crime! To watch
through the night, not plotting merely against the sleep of
betrayed husbands, but against the property of murdered
victims! Now, then, thou hast a notable occasion for displaying
those illustrious qualities of thine, that wonderful
endurance of hunger, of cold, of destitution, by which ere
long thou shalt feel thyself undone, and ruined. This
much, however, I did accomplish, when I defeated thee in
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the comitia, that thou shouldst strike at the republic as an
exile, rather than ravage it as a consul; and that the warfare,
so villanously evoked by thee, should be called rather
the struggle of a base banditti, than the fair strife of warriors.
“Now, Conscript Fathers, that I may solemnly abjure
and deprecate the just reproaches of my country, listen, I
pray you, earnestly to what I say, and commit it deeply to
your memories and minds. For if my country, who is
much dearer to me than my life, if all Italy, if the whole
commonwealth should thus expostulate with me, `What
dost thou, Marcus Tullius? Him, whom thou hast proved
to be my enemy, whom thou seest the future leader in the
war against me, whom thou knowest even now the expected
general in the camp of my foes—him, the author of
every crime, the head of this conspiracy, the summoner of
insurgent slaves, and ruined citizens—him wilt thou suffer
to go forth, and in such guise, that he shall not be as one
banished from the walls, but rather as one let loose to war
against the city? Wilt thou not, then, command that he
shall be led away to prison, that he shall be hurried off to
death, that he shall be visited with the last torments of the
law? What is it, that dissuades thee? Is it the custom
of thine ancestors? Not so—for many times in this republic
have men, even in private stations, inflicted death
on traitors!—Is it the laws, enacted, concerning the punishment
of Roman citizens? Not so—for never, in this
city, have rebels against the commonwealth been suffered
to retain the rights of Citizens or Romans! Dost thou
shrink from the odium of posterity? If it be so, in truth,
thou dost repay great gratitude unto the Roman people,
who hath elevated thee, a man known by thine own actions
only, commended by no ancestral glory, so rapidly,
through all the grades of honor, to this most high authority
of consul; if in the fear of any future odium, if in the
dread of any present peril, thou dost neglect the safety of
the citizens! Again, if thou dost shrink from enmity,
whether dost deem most terrible, that, purchased by a severe
and brave discharge of duty, or that, by inability and
shameful weakness? Or, once more, when all Italy shall
be waste with civil war, when her towns shall be demolished,
her houses blazing to the sky, dost fancy that thy
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good report shall not be then consumed in the fierce glare
of enmity and odium?'
“To these most solemn appeals of my country, and to
the minds of those men who think in likewise, I will now
make brief answer. Could I have judged it for the best,
O Conscript Fathers, that Catiline should have been done
to death, then would I not have granted one hour's tenure
of existence to that gladiator. For if the first of men, noblest
of citizens, were graced, not polluted, by the blood of
Saturninus, and the Gracchi, and Flaccus, and many more
in olden time, there surely is no cause why I should apprehend
a burst of future odium for taking off this parricide of
the republic. Yet if such odium did inevitably impend
above me, I have ever been of this mind, that I regard that
hatred which is earned by honorable duty not as reproach,
but glory! Yet there are some in this assembly, who
either do not see the perils which are imminent above us,
or seeing deny their eyesight. Some who have nursed the
hopes of Catiline by moderate decrees; and strengthened
this conspiracy from its birth until now, by disbelieving
its existence—and many more there are, not of the
wicked only, but of the inexperienced, who, if I should do
justice upon this man, would raise a cry that I had dealt
with him cruelly, and as a regal tyrant.
“Now I am well assured that, if he once arrive, whither
he means to go, at the camp of Manlius, there will be none
so blind as not to see the reality of this conspiracy, none
so wicked as to deny it. But on the other hand, were this
man slain, alone, I perceive that this ruin of the state might
indeed be repressed for a season, but could not be suppressed
for ever—while, if he cast himself forth, and lead
his comrades with him, and gather to his host all his disbanded
desperate outlaws, not only will this full-grown
pestilence of Rome be utterly extinguished and abolished,
but the very seed and germ of all evil will be extirpated
for ever.
“For it is a long time, O Conscript Fathers, that we
have been dwelling amid the perils and stratagems of this
conspiracy. And I know not how it is that the ripeness of
all crime, the maturity of ancient guilt and frenzy, hath
burst to light at once during my consulship. But, this I
know, that if from so vast a horde of assassins and banditti
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this man alone be taken off, we may perchance be relieved
for some brief space, from apprehension and dismay, but
the peril itself will strike inward, and settle down into the
veins and vitals of the commonwealth. As oftentimes,
men laboring under some dread disease, if, while tossing in
feverish heat, they drink cold water, will seem indeed to be
relieved for some brief space, but are thereafter much more
seriously and perilously afflicted, so will this ulcer, which
exists in the republic, if relieved by the cutting off this man,
grow but the more inveterate, the others left alive. Wherefore,
O Conscript Fathers, let the wicked withdraw themselves,
let them retire from among the good, let them herd
together in one place, let them, in one word, as often I have
said before, be divided from us by the city wall. Let them
cease to plot against the consul in his own house, to stand
about the tribunal of the city prætor deterring him from
justice, to beset even the senate house with swords, to prepare
blazing brands and fiery arrows for the conflagration
of the city. Let it, in one word, be borne as an inscription
upon the brow of every citizen, what are his sentiments
toward the republic. This I can promise you, O Conscript
Fathers, that there shall be such diligence in us consuls,
such valor in the Roman knights, such unanimity in all
good citizens, that you shall see, Catiline once departed,
all that is secret exposed, all that is dark brought to light,
all that is dangerous put down, all that is guilty punished.
Under these omens, Catiline, to the eternal welfare of the
state, to thine own ruin and destruction, to the perdition
of all those who have linked themselves with thee in this
league of infamy and parricide, go forth to thine atrocious
and sacrilegious warfare! And do thou Jove, who wert
consecrated by Romulus under the same auspices with
this city, whom we truly hail as the Stator, and supporter
of this city, of this empire, chase forth this man, and this
man's associates, from thine own altars, and from the
shrines of other Gods, from the roofs and hearths of the
city, from the lives and fortunes of the citizens, and consummate
the solemn ruin of all enemies of the good, all
foes of their country, all assassins of Italy, linked in one
league of guilt and bond of infamy, living or dead, by thine
eternal torments.”
The dread voice ceased—the terrible oration ended.
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And instantly with flushed cheek, and glaring eye, and the
foam on his gnashed teeth, fierce, energetical, undaunted,
Catiline sprang to his feet to reply.
But a deep solemn murmur rose on all sides, deepening,
swelling into a vast overwhelming conclamation—
“Down with the Traitor—away with the Parricide!”
But unchecked by this awful demonstration of the popular
mind, he still raised his voice to its highest pitch,
defying all, both gods and men, till again it was drowned
by that appalling torrent of scorn and imprecation.
Then, with a furious gesture, and a yelling voice that
rose clear above all the din and clamor,
“Since,” he exclaimed, “my enemies will drive me
headlong to destruction, I will extinguish the conflagration
which consumes me in their universal ruin!”
And pursued by the yells, and groans, and curses of
that great concourse, and hunted by wilder furies within
his own dark soul, the baffled Traitor rushed precipitately
homeward.
(1) The 21st of October.
(2) The 27th of October.
(1) The 28th of October.
(2) The first of November.
(3) The 6th of November. This oration was delivered on the 8th.
(1) The 13th of November.
(2) The 31st of December.
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CHAPTER VI. THE FLIGHT.
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Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
Cicero.
His heart was a living hell, as he rushed homeward.
Cut off on every side, detected, contemned, hated, what
was left to the Traitor?
To retrace his steps was impossible,—nor, if possible,
would his indomitable pride have consented to surrender
his ambitious schemes, his hopes of vengeance.
He rushed homeward; struck down a slave, who asked
him some officious question; spurned Orestilla out of his
way with a bitter earnest curse; barred himself up in his
inmost chamber, and remained there alone one hour.
One hour; but in that hour what years, what ages of
time, what an eternity of agony, was concentrated!
For once in many years he sat still, motionless, silent,
while thought succeeded thought, and passion passion,
with indescribable rapidity and vividness.
In that one hour all the deeds of his life passed before
him, from his wild and reckless boyhood to his atrocious
and dishonored manhood.
The victims of his fiendish passions seemed to fleet, one
by one, before his eyes, with deathlike visages and ghastly
menace.
The noble virgin, whom he had first dishonored, scarcely
as yet a boy, pointed with bloody fingers to the deep self-inflicted
wound, which yawned in her snowy bosom.
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The vestal, who had broken through all bounds of virtue,
piety, and honor, sacrificed soul and body to his unpitying
lust, gazed at him with that unearthly terror in her
eyes, which glared from them as they looked their last at
earth and heaven, when she descended, young and lovely,
into a living grave.
The son, whom he had poisoned, to render his house vacant
for unhallowed nuptials, with his whole frame convulsed
in agony, and the sardonic grin of death on his writhing
lips, frowned on him.
His brother, who had drawn life from the same soft bosom,
but whose kindred blood had pleaded vainly against
the fratricidal dagger, frowned on him.
His sister's husband, that mild and blameless knight,
whose last breath was spent in words of peace and pardon
to his slayer, now frowned on him.
The stern impassive face of Marius Gratidianus, unmoved
alike by agony or insult, frowned on him, in the serene
dignity of sustaining virtue.
Men of all ranks and ages, done to death by his hand or
his head, by poison, by the knife, by drowning, by starvation—
women deceived or violated, and then murdered,
while their kisses were yet warm on his lips—infants tortured
to death in the very wantonness of cruelty, and crime
that must have been nigh akin to madness, gibbered, and
glared upon him.
These things would seem impossible, they are in truth
incredible, but they are true beyond the possibility of cavil.
He was indeed one of those unaccountable and extraordinary
monsters, who, thanks to nature! appear but once
in many ages, to whom sin is dear for its own naked self,
to whom butchery[1] is a pastime, and blood and agonies and
tears a pleasurable excitement to their mad morbid appetites.
And in this hour of downfall, one by one, did his fancy
conjure up before him the victims of his merciless love,
his merciless hatred—both alike, sure and deadly.
It was a strange combination of mind, for there must
have been in the spirit that evoked these phantoms of the
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conscience, something of remorse, if not of repentance.
Pale, ghastly, grim, reproachful, they all seemed to him to
be appealing to the just heavens for justice and revenge.
Yet there was even more of triumph and proud self-gratulation
in his mood, than of remorse for the past, or of
apprehension for the future.
As he thought of each, as he thought of all, he in some
sort gloated over the memory of his success, in some sort
derived confidence from the very number of his unpunished
crimes.
“They crossed me,” he muttered to himself, “and where
are they?—My fate cried out for their lives, and their lives
were forfeit. Who ever stood in my path, that has not perished
from before my face? Not one! Who ever strove
with me, that has not fallen? who ever frowned upon me,
that has not expiated the bended brow by the death-grin?—
Not one! not one! Scores, hundreds, have died for
thwarting me! but who of men has lived to boast of it!—
Not one!”
He rose from his seat, stalked slowly across the room,
drew his hand across his brow twice, with a thoughtful gesture,
and then said,
“Cicero! Cicero! Better thou never hadst been born!
Better—but it must be—my Fate, my fate demands it,
and neither eloquence nor wisdom, virtue nor valor, shall
avail to save thee. These were brave, beautiful, wise, pious,
eloquent; and what availed it to them? My Fate, my
fate shall prevail! To recede is to perish, is to be scorned—
to advance is to win—to win universal empire,” and
he stretched out his hand, as if he clutched an imaginary
globe—“to win fame, honor, the applause of ages—for with
the people—the dear people—failure alone and poverty are
guilt—success, by craft or crime, success is piety and virtue!—
On! Catifine! thy path is onward still, upward, and
onward! But not here!”
Then he unbarred the door, “What ho, Chærea!” and
prompt, at the word, the freedman entered. “Send out
my trustiest slaves, summon me hither instantly Lentulus
and the rest of those, who supped here on the Calends.
Ha! the Calends.” He repeated the word, as if some
new idea had struck him, on the mention of that day, and
he paused thoughtfully. “Aye! Paullus Arvina I had
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well nigh forgotten—I have it; Aulus is the man; he hath
some private grudge at him! and beside those,” he added,
again addressing the freedman, “go thyself and bring Aulus
Fulvius hither, the son of the Senator—him thou wilt
find with Cethegus, the others at the house of Decius Brutus,
near the forum. They dine with Sempronia. Get
thee gone, and beshrew thy life! tarry not, or thou diest!”
The man quitted the room in haste; and Catiline continued
muttering to himself—“Aye! but for that cursed
boy, we should have had Præneste on the Calends! He
shall repent it, ere he die, and he shall die too; but not yet—
not till he is aweary of his very life, and then, by tortures
that shall make the most weary life a boon. I have it all,
the method, and the men! Weak fool, thou better hadst
been mine.”
Then turning to the table he sat down, and wrote many
letters, addressed to men of Consular dignity, persons of
worth and honor, declaring that, borne down on all sides
by false accusations, and helpless to oppose the faction of
his enemies, he yielded to the spite of fortune, and was
departing for Marseilles a voluntary exile, not conscious of
any crime, but careful of the tranquillity of the republic,
and anxious that no strife should arise from his private griefs.
To one, who afterward, almost deceived by his profound
and wonderful dissimulation, read it aloud in the Senate, in
proof that no civil war was impending, he wrote:
“Lucius Catiline to Quintus Catulus, sends health.
Your most distinguished faith, known by experience, gives
me in mighty perils a grateful confidence, thus to address
you. Since I have resolved to prepare no defence in the
new steps which I have taken, I am resolved to set forth
my apology, conscious to myself of no crime, which—So
may the God of Honor guard me!—you may rely upon
as true. Goaded by injury and insult, robbed of the guerdon
of my toils and industry, that state of dignity at which
I aimed, I pubicly have undertaken, according to my wont,
the cause of the unhappy and oppressed; not because I
am unable to pay all debts contracted on my own account,
from my own property—from those incurred in behalf of
others, the generosity of Orestilla and her daughter, by
their treasures, would have released me—but because I
saw men honored who deserve no honor, and felt myself
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disgraced, on false suspicion. On this plea, I now take
measures, honorable in my circumstances, for preserving
that dignity which yet remains to me. I would have written
more, but I learn that violence is about to be offered
me. Now I commend to you Orestilla, and trust her to
your faith. As you love your own children, shield her
from injury. Farewell.”
This strange letter, intended, as after events evidently
proved, to bear a double sense, he had scarce sealed, when
Aulus Fulvius was announced.
For a few moments after he entered, Catiline continued
writing; then handing Chærea, who at a sign had remained
in waiting, a list of many names, “Let them,” he said,
“be here, prepared for a journey, and in arms at the fifth
hour. Prepare a banquet of the richest, ample for all
these, in the Atrium; in the garden Triclinium, a feast for
ten—the rarest meats, the choicest wines, the delicatest
perfumes, the fairest slave-girls in most voluptuous attire.
At the third hour! See to it! Get thee hence!”
The freedman bowed low, and departed on his mission;
then turning to the young patrician,
“I have sent for you,” he said, “the first, noble Aulus,
because I hold you the first in honor, bravery, and action;
because I believe that you will serve me truly, and to the
utmost. Am I deceived?”
“Catiline, you have judged aright.”
“And that you cannot serve me, more gratefully to yourself,
than in avenging me on that young pedant, Paullus
Arvina.”
The eyes of the youthful profligate flashed dark fire, and
his whole face beamed with intense satisfaction.
“By all the Powers of Tartarus!” he cried, “Show me
but how, and I will hunt him to the gates of Hades!”
Catiline nodded to him, with an approving smile, and after
looking around him warily for a minute, as if fearful even
of the walls' overhearing him, he stepped close up to him,
and whispered in his ear, for several moments.
“Do you conceive me, ha?” he said aloud, when he
had ended.
“Excellent well!” cried the other in rapturous triumph,
“but how gain an opportunity?”
“Look you, here is his signature, some trivial note or
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other, I kept it, judging that one day it might serve a purpose.
You can write, I know, very cleverly—I have not
forgotten Old Alimentus' will—write to her in his name,
requesting her to visit him, with Hortensia, otherwise she
will doubt the letter. Then you can meet her, and do as I
have told you. Will not that pass, my Fulvius?”
“It shall pass,” answered the young man confidently.
“My life on it! Rely on me!”
“I hold it done already,” returned Catiline. “But you
comprehend all—unstained, in all honor, until she reach
me; else were the vengeance incomplete.”
“It shall be so. But when?”
“When best you can accomplish it. This night, I leave
the city.”
“You leave the city!”
“This night! at the sixth hour!”
“But to return, Catiline?”
“To return with a victorious, an avenging army! To
return as destroyer! with a sword sharper than that of
mighty Sylla, a torch hotter than that of the mad Ephesian!
To return, Aulus, in such guise, that ashes and blood only
show where Rome—was!”
“But, ere that, I must join you?”
“Aye! In the Appenines, at the camp of Caius Manlius.”
“Fear me not. The deed is accomplished—hatred and
vengeance, joined to resolve, never fail.”
“Never! but lo, here come the rest. Not a word to one
of these. The burly sword-smith is your man, and his
fellows! Strike suddenly, and soon; and, till you strike,
be silent. Ha! Lentulus, Cethegus, good friends all—welcome,
welcome!” he cried, as they entered, eight in number,
the ringleaders of the atrocious plot, grasping each by
the hand. “I have called you to a council, a banquet, and,
thence to action!”
“Good things all,” answered Lentulus, “so that the first
be brief and bold, the second long and loud, the last daring
and decisive!”
“They shall be so, all three! Listen. This very night,
I set forth to join Caius Manlius in his camp. Things
work not here as I would have them; my presence keeps
alive suspicion, terror, watchfulness. I absent, security
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will grow apace, and from that boldness, and from boldness,
rashness! So will you find that opportunity, which
dread of me, while present, delays fatally. Watch your
time; choose your men; augment, by any means, the
powers of our faction; gain over friends; get rid of enemies,
secretly if you can; if not, audaciously. Destroy
the Consul—you will soon find occasion, or, if not find,
make it. Be ready with the blade and brand, to burn and
to slaughter, so soon as my trumpets shall sound havoc
from the hills of Fiesolè. metellus and his men, will be
sent after me with speed; Marcius Rex will be ordered
from the city, with his cohorts, to Capua, or Apulia, or the
Picene district; for in all these, the slaves will rise, so
soon as my Eagle soars above the Appenine. The heart
of the city will then lie open to your daggers.”
“And they shall pierce it to the core,” cried Cethegus.
“Wisely you have resolved, my Catiline, as ever,” said
Longinus Cassius. “Go, and success sit upon your banners!”
“Be not thou over slow, my Cassius, nor thou, Cethegus,
over daring. Temper each one, the metal of the other.
Let your counsels be, as the gathering of the storm-clouds,
certain and slow; your deeds, as the thunderbolt, rash,
rapid, irresistible!”
“How will you go forth, Catiline? Alone? in secret?”
asked Autronius.
“No! by the Father of Quirinus! with my casque on
my head, and my broad-sword on my thigh, and with three
hundred of my clients at my back! They sup in my Atrium,
at the fifth hour of the night, and at the sixth, we
mount our horses. I think Cicero will not bar our passage.”
“By Mars! he would beat the gates down rather, to let
you forth the more easily.”
“If he be wise he would.”
“He is wise,” said Catiline. “Would God that he were
less so.”
“To be overwise, is worse, sometimes, than to be foolish,”
answered Cethegus.
“And to be over bold, worse than to be a coward!” said
Catiline. “Therefore, Cethegus, be thou neither. Now,
my friends, I do not say leave me, but excuse me, until the
third hour, when we will banquet. Nay! go not forth
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from the house, I pray you; it may arouse suspicion, which
I would have you shun. There are books in the library, for
who would read; foils in the garden, balls in the fives-court,
for who would breathe themselves before supper; and
lastly, there are some fair slaves in the women's chamber,
for who would listen to the lute, or kiss soft lips, and not
unwilling. I have still many things to do, ere I depart.”
“And those done, a farewell caress to Orestilla,” said
Cethegus, laughing.
“Aye! would I could take her with me.”
“Do you doubt her, then, that you fear to leave her?”
“If I doubted, I would not leave her—or I would leave
her so, as not to doubt her. Alexion himself, cannot in
general cure the people, whom I doubt.”
“I hope you never will doubt me,” said Curius, who
was present, the Judas of the faction, endeavoring to jest;
yet more than half feeling what he said.
“I hope not”—replied Catiline, with a strange fixed
glance, and a singular smile; for he did in truth, at that
very moment, half doubt the speaker. “If I do, Curius,
it will not be for long! But I must go,” he added, “and
make ready. Amuse yourselves as best you can, till I return
to you. Come, Aulus Fulvius, I must speak with you
farther.”
And, with the words, he left them, not indeed to apply
themselves to any sport or pleasure, but to converse anxiously,
eagerly, almost fearfully, on the events which were
passing in succession, so rapid, and so unforeseen. Their
souls were too much absorbed by one dominant idea, one
devouring passion, to find any interest in any small or casual
excitement.
To spirits so absorbed, hours fly like minutes, and none
of those guilty men were aware of the lapse of time, until
Catiline returned, dressed in a suit of splendid armor,
of blue Iberian steel, embossed with studs and chasings of
pure silver, with a rich scarlet sagum over it, fringed with
deep lace. His knees were bare, but his legs were defended
by greaves of the same fabric and material with his
corslet; and a slave bore behind him his bright helmet,
triply crested with crimson horsehair, his oblong shield
charged with a silver thunderbolt, and his short broad-sword
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of Bilboa steel, which was already in those days, as famous
as in the middle ages. He looked, indeed, every inch a
captain; and if undaunted valor, unbounded energy, commanding
intellect, an eye of lightning, unequalled self-possession,
endless resource, incomparable endurance of
cold, heat, hunger, toil, watchfulness, and extremity of pain,
be qualities which constitute one, then was he a great
Captain.
A captain well formed to lead a host of demons.
The banquet followed, with all that could gratify the
eye, the ear, the nostril, or the palate. The board blazed
with lights, redoubled by the glare of gold and crystal.
Flowers, perfumes, incense, streamed over all, till the
whole atmosphere was charged with voluptuous sweetness.
The softest music breathed from the instruments of concealed
performers. The rarest wines flowed like water.
And flashing eyes, and wreathed smiles, and bare arms,
and bare bosoms, and most voluptuous forms, decked to
inflame the senses of the coldest, were prodigal of charms
and soft abandonment.
No modest pen may describe the orgies that ensued,—
the drunkenness, the lust, the frantic mirth, the unnatural
mad revelry. There was but one at that banquet, who,
although he drank more deeply, rioted more sensually,
laughed more loudly, sang more wildly, than any of the
guests, was yet as cool amid that terrible scene of excitement,
as in the council chamber, as on the battle field.
His sallow face flushed not; his hard clear eye swam
not languidly, nor danced with intoxication; his voice quivered
not; his pulse was as slow, as even as its wont.
That man's frame, like his soul, was of trebly tempered
steel.
Had Catiline not been the worst, he had been the greatest
of Romans.
But his race in Rome was now nearly ended. The water-clocks
announced the fifth hour; and leaving the more
private triclinium, in which the ringleaders alone had
feasted, followed by his guests,—who were flushed, reeling,
and half frenzied,—with a steady step, a cold eye, and
a presence like that of Mars himself, the Arch Traitor entered
the great open hall, wherein three hundred of his
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clients, armed sumptuously in the style of legionary horsemen,
had banqueted magnificently, though they had stopped
short of the verge of excess.
All rose to their feet, as Catiline entered, hushed in
dread expectation.
He stood for one moment, gazing on his adherents, tried
veterans every man of them, case-hardened in the furnace
of Sylla's fiery discipline, with proud confidence and triumph
in his eye; and then addressed them in clear high
tones, piercing as those of an adamantine trumpet.
“Since,” he said, “it is permitted to us neither to live
in Rome securely, nor to die in Rome honorably, I go
forth—will you follow me?”
And, with an unanimous cry, as it had been the voice of
one man, they answered,
“To the death, Catiline!”
“I go forth, harming no one, hating no one, fearing no
one! Guiltless of all, but of loving the people! Goaded
to ruin by the proud patricians, injured, insulted, well nigh
maddened, I go forth to seek, not power nor revenge, but
innocence and safety. If they will leave me peace, the
lamb shall be less gentle; if they will drive me into war,
the famished lion shall be tamer. Soldiers of Sylla, will
you have Sylla's friend in peace for your guardian, in war
for your captain?”
And again, in one tumultuous shout, they replied, “In
peace, or in war, through life, and unto death, Catiline!”
“Behold, then, your Eagle!”—and, with the word, he
snatched from a marble slab on which it lay, covered by tapestry,
the silver bird of Mars, hovering with expanded
wings over a bannered staff, and brandished it on high, in
triumph. “Behold your standard, your omen, and your
God! Swear, that it shall shine yet again above Rome's
Capitol!”
Every sword flashed from its scabbard, every knee was
bent; and kneeling, with the bright blades all pointed like
concentric sunbeams toward that bloody idol, in deep emotion,
and deep awe, they swore to be true to the Eagle,
traitors to Rome, parricides to their country.
“One cup of wine, and then to horse, and to glory!”
The goblets were brimmed with the liquid madness;
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they were quaffed to the very dregs; they clanged empty
upon the marble floor.
Ten minutes more, and the hall was deserted; and
mounted on proud horses, brought suddenly together, by
a perfect combination of time and place, with the broad
steel heads of their javelins sparkling in the moonbeams,
and the renowned eagle poised with bright wings above
them, the escort of the Roman Traitor rode through the
city streets, at midnight, audacious, in full military pomp,
in ordered files, with a cavalry clarion timing their steady
march—rode unresisted through the city gates, under the
eyes of a Roman cohort, to try the fortunes of civil war in
the provinces, frustrate of massacre and conflagration in
the capitol.
Cicero knew it, and rejoiced; and when he cried aloud
on the following day, “Abiit, EXCESSIT, EVASIT, ERUPIT—
He hath departed, he hath stolen out, he hath gone from
among us, he hath burst forth into war”—his great heart
thrilled, and his voice quivered, with prophetic joy and
conscious triumph. He felt even then that he had “Saved his Country.”
eaf146v2.n1[1] Let those who doubt this, think of Couthon and Carrier Fouchè
and Marat, and Barere!
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CHAPTER VII THE AMBASSADORS.
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Give first admittance to th' ambassadors.
Hamlet.
It wanted a short time of noon, on a fine bracing day
in the latter end of November.
Something more than a fortnight had elapsed since the
flight of Catiline; and, as no further discoveries had been
made, nor any tumults or disturbances arisen in the city,
men had returned to their former avocations, and had for
the most part forgotten already the circumstances, which
had a little while before convulsed the public mind with
fear or favor.
No certain tidings had been received, or, if received, divulged
to the people, of Catiline's proceedings; it being
only known that he had tarried for a few days at the country-house
of Caius Flaminius Flamma, near to Arretium,
where he was believed to be amusing himself with boar-hunting.
On the other hand, the letters of justification, and complaint
against Cicero, had been shewn to their friends by
all those who had received them, all men of character and
weight; and their contents had thus gained great publicity.
The consequence of this was, naturally enough, that the
friends and favorers of the conspiracy, acting with singular
wisdom and foresight, studiously affected the utmost
moderation and humility of bearing, while complaining
every where of the injustice done to Catiline, and of the
false suspicions maliciously cast on many estimable
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individuals, by the low-born and ambitious person who was
temporarily at the head of the state.
The friends of Cicero and the republic, on the contrary,
lay on their oars, in breathless expectation of some new
occurrence, which should confirm the public mind, and
approve their own conduct; well aware that much time
could not elapse before Catiline would be heard of at the
head of an army.
In the meantime, the city wore its wonted aspect; men
bought and sold, and toiled or sported; and women smiled
and sighed, flaunted and wantoned in the streets, as if, a
few short days before, they had not been wringing their
hands in terror, dissolved in tears, and speechless from dismay.
It was a market day, and the forum was crowded almost
to overflowing. The country people had flocked in, as
usual, to sell the produce of their farms; and their wagons
stood here and there laden with seasonable fruits, cheeses,
and jars of wine, pigeons in wicker cages, fresh herbs, and
such like articles of traffic. Many had brought their wives,
sun-burned, black-haired and black-eyed, from their villas
in the Latin or Sabine country, to purchase city luxuries.
Many had come to have their lawsuits decided; many to
crave justice against their superiors from the Tribunes of
the people; many to get their wills registered, to pay or
borrow money, and to transact that sort of business, for
which the day was set aside.
Nor were the townsmen absent from the gay scene; for
to them the nundinæ, or market days, were holydays, in
which the courts of law were shut, and the offices closed
to them, at least, although open to the rural citizens, for
the despatch of business.
The members of the city tribes crowded therefore to the
forum many of these too accompanied by their women, to
buy provisions, to ask for news from the country, and to
stare at the uncouth and sturdy forms of the farmers, or
admire the black eyes and merry faces of the country
lasses.
It was a lively and gay scene; the bankers' shops, distinguished
by the golden shields of the Samnites, suspended
from the lintels of their doors, were thronged with money-changers,
and alive with the hum of traffic.
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Ever and anon some curule magistrate, in his fringed
toga, with his lictors, in number proportioned to his rank,
would come sweeping through the dense crowd; or some
plebeian officer, with his ushers and beadles; or, before
whom the ranks of the multitude would open of their own
accord and bow reverentially, some white-stoled vestal virgin,
with her fair features closely veiled from profane eyes,
the sacred fillets on her head, and her lictor following her
dainty step with his shouldered fasces. Street musicians
there were also, and shows of various kinds, about which
the lower orders of the people collected eagerly; and, here
and there, among the white stoles and gayly colored shawls
of the matrons and maidens, might be seen the flowered
togas and showy head-dresses of those unfortunate girls,
many of them rare specimens of female beauty, whose
character precluded them from wearing the attire of their
own sex.
“Ha! Fabius Sanga, whither thou in such haste through
the crowd?” cried a fine manly voice, to a patrician of
middle age who was forcing his way hurriedly among the
jostling mob, near to the steps of the Comitium, or building
appropriated to the reception of ambassadors.
The person thus addressed turned his head quickly,
though without slackening his speed.
“Ah! is it thou, Arvina? Come with me, thou art
young and strong; give me thy arm, and help me through
this concourse.”
“Willingly,” replied the young man. “But why are
you in such haste?” he continued, as he joined him; “you
can have no business here to-day.”
“Aye! but I have, my Paullus. I am the patron to
these Gallic ambassadors, who have come hither to crave
relief from the Senate for their people. They must receive
their answer in the Comitium to-day; and I fear me
much, I am late.”
“Ah! by the Gods! I saw them on that day they entered
the city. Right stout and martial barbarians! What
is their plea? will they succeed?”
“I fear not,” answered Sanga. “They are too poor.
Senatorial relief must be bought nowadays. The longest
purse is the most righteous cause! Their case is a hard
one, too. Their nation is oppressed with debt, both
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private and public; they have been faithful allies to the state,
and served it well in war, and now seek remission of some
grievous tributes. But what shall we say? They are
poor—barbarians—their aid not needed now by the republic—
and, as you know, my Paullus, justice is sol now
in Rome, like silk, for its weight in gold!”
“The more shame!” answered Paullus. “It was no
by such practices, that our fathers built up this granded
fice of the republic.”
“Riches have done it, Paullus! Riches and Commerce!
While we had many tillers of the ground, and few merchants,
we were brave in the field, and just at home!”
“Think you, then, that the spirit of commerce is averse
to justice, and bravery, and freedom?”
“No, I do not think it, Arvina, I know it!” answered
Fabius Sanga, who, with the truth and candor of a patrician
of Rome's olden school, possessed, and that justly,
much repute for wisdom and foresight. “All mercantile
communities are base communities. Look at Tyre, in old
times! Look at Carthage, in our grandfathers' days! at
Corinth in our own! Merchants are never patriots! and
rich men seldom; unless they be landholders! But see,
see, there are my clients, descending the steps of the Comitium!
By all the Gods! I am too late! their audience
is ended! Now, by Themis, the goddess of justice! will
they deem me also venal!”
As he spoke, they had come to the foot of the grand
flight of marble steps, leading up to the doors of the Græ
costasis, or comitium; or rather had come as near to the
foot, as the immense concourse, which had gathered about
that spot to stare at the wild figures and foreign gait of the
ambassadors, would allow them to approach.
“It is in vain to press forward yet, my Sanga. A moment
or two, and these clowns will be satisfied with gazing;
yet, by Hercules! I cannot blame them. For these
Highlanders are wondrous muscular and stout warriors to
look upon, and their garb, although somewhat savage, is
very martial and striking.”
And, in truth, their Celtic bonnets, with their long single
eagle feathers, set somewhat obliquely on their abundant
auburn hair; their saffron-colored shirts, tight-fitting trews
of tartan plaid, and variegated mantles floating over their
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brawny shoulders, their chains and bracelets of gold and
silver, their long daggers in their girdles, and their tremendous
broad-swords swinging at their thighs, did present
a strange contrast to the simple tunics of white woollen,
and plain togas of the same material, which constituted
the attire of nine-tenths of the spectators.
“I must must get nearer!” replied Sanga, anxiously;
“I must speak with them! I can see by the moody
brows, and sullen looks of the elder nobles, and by the
compressed lips and fiery glances of the young warriors,
that matters have gone amiss with them. I shall be blamed,
I know, for it—but I have failed in my duty as their patron,
and must bear it. There will be mischief; I pray
you let us pass, my friends,” he continued, addressing the
people, “I am the patron of their nation; let us pass.”
But it was in vain that they besought and strove; the
pressure of the mob was, if anything, augmented; and
Paullus was compelled to remain motionless with his companion,
hoping that the Allobroges would move in their
direction.
But, while they were thus waiting, a thin keen-looking
man pressed up to the ambassadors, from the farther side,
while they were yet upon the steps, and saluting them cordially,
pressed their hands, as if he were an old and familiar
friend.
Nor did the Highlanders appear less glad to see him,
for they shook his hand warmly, and spoke to him with vehement
words, and sparkling eyes.
“Who is that man, who greets our Allobroges so warmly?”
asked Arvina of his companion. “Know you the
man?”
“I know him!” answered Sanga, watching the gestures
which accompanied their conversation with an eager eye,
although too far off to hear anything that was passing. “It
is one of these traders, of whom we spoke but now; and
as pestilent a knave and rogue as ever sold goods by short
measure, and paid his purchases in light coin! Publius
Umbrenus is the man. A Gallic trader. He hath become
rich by the business he hath carried on with this same tribe,
bartering Roman wares, goldsmith's work, trinkets, cutlery,
wines, and the like, against their furs and hides, and
above all against their amber. He gains three hundred
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fold by every barter, and yet, by the God of Faith! he
brings them in his debt after all; and yet the simple-minded,
credulous Barbarians, believe him their best friend. I
would buy it at no small price, to know what he saith to
them. See! he points to the Comitium. By your head,
Paullus! he is poisoning their minds against the Senate!”
“See!” said Arvina. “They descend the steps in the
other direction. He is leading them away with him somewhither.”
“To no good end!” said Sanga emphatically; and then
smiting his breast with his hand, he continued, evidently
much afflicted, “My poor clients! my poor simple High-landers!
He will mislead them to their ruin?”
“They are going toward Vesta's temple,” said Arvina.
“If we should turn back through the arch of Fabius, and
so enter into the western branch of the Sacred Way, we
might overtake them near the Ruminal Fig-tree.”
“You might, for you are young and active. But I am
growing old, Paullus, and the gout afflicts my feet, and
makes me slower than my years. Will you do so, and
mark whither he leads them; and come back, and tell me?
You shall find me in Natta's, the bookseller's shop, at the
corner of the street Argiletum.”
“Willingly, Sanga,” answered the young man. “The
rather, if it may profit these poor Gauls anything.”
“Thou art a good youth, Paullus. The Gods reward it
to thee. Remember Natta's book-shop.”
“Doubt me not,” said Arvina; and he set off at a pace
so rapid, as brought him up with those, whom he was pursuing,
within ten minutes.
The ambassadors, six or eight in number, among whom
the old white-headed chief he had observed—when he went
with Hortensia and his betrothed, to see their ingress into
Rome—together with the young warrior whose haughty
bearing he had noticed on that occasion, were most eminent,
had been joined by another Roman beside Umbrenus.
Him, Paullus recognised at once, for Titus Volturcius, a
native and nobleman of Crotona, a Greek city, on the Gult
of Tarentum, although a citizen of Rome.
He was a man of evil repute, as a wild debauchee, a
gambler, and seducer; and Arvina had observed him more
than once in company with Cornelius Lentulus.
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This led him to suspect, that Sanga was perhaps more
accurate in his suspicions, than he himself imagined; and
that something might be in progress here, against the republic.
He watched them warily, therefore; and soon found an
ample confirmation of the worst he imagined, in seeing
them enter the house of Decius Brutus, the husband of the
beautiful, but infamous Sempronia.
It must not be supposed, that the privity of these various
individuals to the conspiracy, was accurately known to young
Arvina; but he was well aware, that Lentulus and Catiline
were sworn friends; and that Sempronia was the very
queen of those abandoned and licentious ladies, who were
the instigators and rewarders of the young nobles, in their
profligacy and their crimes; it did not require, therefore,
any wondrous degree of foresight, to see that something
dangerous was probably brewing, in this amalgamation of ingredients
so incongruous, as Roman nobles and patrician
harlots, with wild barbarians from the Gallic highlands.
Without tarrying, therefore, longer than to ascertain that
he was not mistaken in the house, he hurried back to meet
Sanga, at the appointed place, promising himself that not
Sanga only, but Cicero himself, should be made acquainted
with that which he had discovered so opportunely.
The Argiletum was a street leading down from the
vegetable mart, which lay just beyond the Porta Fluminiana,
or river gate, to the banks of the Tiber, at the quays
called pulchrum littus, or the beautiful shore; it was therefore
a convenient place of meeting for persons who had
parted company in the forum, particularly when going in
that direction, which had been taken by Umbrenus and
the Ambassadors.
Hastening onward to the street appointed—which was
for the most part inhabited by booksellers, copyists, and
embellishers of illuminated manuscripts, beside a few tailors—
he was hailed, just as he reached the river gate, by
a well-known voice, from a cross street; and turning round
he felt his hand warmly grasped, by an old friend, Aristius
Fuscus, one of the noble youths, with whom he had striven,
in the Campus Martius, on that eventful day, when he
first visited the house of Catiline.
“Hail! Paullus,” exclaimed the new comer, “I have
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not seen you in many days. Where have you been, since
you beat us all in the quinquernum?”
“Absent from town, on business of the state, part of the
time, my Fuscus.” answered Arvina, shaking his friend's
hand gayly. “I was sent to Præneste, with my troop of
horse, before the calends of November; and returned not
until the Ides.”
“And since that, I fancy”—replied the other laughing,
“You have been sunning yourself in the bright smiles of
the fair Julia. I thought you were to have led her home,
as your bride, ere this time.”
“You are wrong for once, good friend,” said Paullus,
with a well-pleased smile. “Julia is absent from the city
also. She and Hortensia are on a visit to their farm, at the
foot of Mount Algidus. I have not seen them, since my
return from Præneste.”
“Your slaves, I trow, know every mile-stone by this
time, on the via Labicana! Do you write to her daily?”
“Not so, indeed, Aristius;” he replied. “We are
too long betrothed, and too confident, each in the good
faith of the other, to think it needful to kill my poor slaves
in bearing amatory billets.”
“You are wise, Paullus, as you are true, and will, I
hope, be happy lovers!”
“The Gods grant it!” replied Paullus.
“Do they return shortly? It is long since I have visited
Hortensia. She would do justly to refuse me admittance
when next I go to salute her.”
“Not until after the next market day. But here I must
leave you; I am going to Natta's shop, in the Argiletum.”
“To purchase books? Ha! or to the tailor's? the last,
I presume, gay bridegroom—there are, you know, two
Nattas.”
“Natta, the bookseller, is my man. But I go thither, not
as a buyer, but to meet a friend, Fabius Sanga.”
“A very wise and virtuous Roman,” replied the other,
stopping at the corner of the street Argiletum, “but tarry
a moment; when shall we meet again? I am going down
to the hippodrome, can you not join me there, when you
have finished your business with Sanga?”
“I can; gladly.” answered Arvina.
As they stopped, previous to separating, a young man,
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who had been walking for some distance close at their heets,
passed them, nodding as he did so, to Arvina, who returned
his salutation, very distantly.
“Aulus Fulvius!” said Aristius, as Paullus bowed
to him, “as bad a specimen of a young patrician, as one
might see for many days, even if he searched for rascals,
as the philosopher did for an honest man, by lanthorn's
light at noon. He has been following our steps, by my
head!—to pick up our stray words, and weave them into
calumnies, and villainy.”
“I care not,” answered Arvina, lightly. “He may make
all he can of what he heard, we were talking no treason!”
“No, truly; not even lover's treason,” said his friend.
“Well, do not tarry long, Arvina.”
“I will not; be assured. Not the fourth part of an hour.
See! there is Fabius Sanga awaiting me even now.
Walk slowly, and I will overtake you, before you reach the
Campus.”
And with the word, he turned down the Argiletum, and
joined the patron of the Allobroges, at the bookseller's
door.
In the meantime Aulus Fulvius, who had heard all that
he desired, wheeled about, and walked back toward the
Carmental gate. But, as he passed the head of the Argiletum,
he cast a lurid glance of singular malignity upon Arvina,
who was standing in full view, conversing with his
friend; and muttered between his teeth,
“The fool! the hypocrite! the pedant! well said, wise
Catiline, `that it matters not much whether one listen to
his friends, so he listen well to his enemies!' The fool—
so he thinks he shall have Julia. But he never shall, by
Hades! never!”
A slenderly made boy, dressed in a succinct huntsman's
tunic, with subligacula, or drawers, reaching to within a
hand's breadth of his knee, was loitering near the corner,
gazing wistfully on Arvina; and, as Aulus muttered those
words half aloud, he jerked his head sharply around, and
looked very keenly at the speaker.
“Never shall have Julia!” he repeated to himself, “he
must have spoken that concerning Arvina. I wonder who
he is. I never saw him before. I must know—I must
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know, forthwith! For he shall have her, by heaven and
Him, who dwells in it! he shall have her!”
And, turning a lingering and languid look toward Paullus,
the slight boy darted away in pursuit of Aulus.
A moment afterward Arvina, his conference with Sanga
ended, and ignorant of all that by-play, took the road
leading to the Campus, eager to overtake his friend Aristius.
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CHAPTER VIII. THE LATIN VILLA.
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I come, O Agamemnon's daughter fair,
To this thy sylvan lair.
Electra.
Through a soft lap in the wooded chain of Mount Algidus,
a bright pellucid stream, after wheeling and fretting
among the crags and ledges of the upper valleys, winds its
way gently, toward the far-famed Tiber.
Shut in, on every side, except the south, by the lower
spurs of the mountain ridge, in which it is so snugly nestled,
covered with rich groves of chesnut-trees, and sheltered
on the northward by the dark pines of the loftier
steeps, it were difficult to conceive a fairer site for a villa,
than that sweet vale.
Accordingly, on a little knoll in the jaws of the gorge,
whence issued that clear streamlet, facing the pleasant
south, yet sheltered from its excessive heats by a line of superb
plane trees, festooned with luxuriant vines, there
stood a long low building of the antique form, built of darkcolored
stone.
A villa, in the days of Cicero, was a very different thing
from the luxurious pleasure-houses which came into vogue
in the days of the later Emperors, of which Pliny has given
us descriptions so minute and glowing; yet even his
Tusculan retreat was a building of vast pretension, when
compared with this, which was in fact neither more noless
than an old Roman Farmhouse, of that innocent and
unsophisticated day, when the Consulars of the Republic
were tillers of the soil, and when heroes returned, from
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the almost immortal triumph, to the management of the
spade and the ploughshare.
This villa had, it is true, been adorned somewhat, and
fitted to the temporary abode of individuals more refined
and elegant, than the rough steward and rustic slaves, who
were its usual tenants. Yet it still retained its original
form, and was adapted to its original uses.
The house itself, which was but two stories high, was in
form a hollow square, to the courts enclosed in which access
was gained by a pair of lofty wooden gates in the rear.
It had, in the first instance, presented on all sides merely a
blank wall exteriorly, all the windows looking into the court,
the centre of which was occupied by a large tank of water,
the whole interior serving the purpose of a farm yard.
The whole ground floor of the building, had formerly been
occupied by stables, root-houses, wine-presses, dairies,
cheese-rooms and the like, and by the slaves' kitchen,
which was the first apartment toward the right of the entrance.
The upper story contained the granaries and the
dormitories of the workmen; and three sides still remained unaltered.
The front, however, of the villa had been pierced with a
handsome doorway, and several windows; a colonnade of
rustic stonework had been carried along the facade, and a
beautiful garden had been laid out before it, with grassy
terraces, clipped hedges, box trees, transmuted by the
gardener's art into similitudes of Peacocks, Centaurs, Tritons,
Swans, and many other forms of fowls or fishes, unknown
alike and unnamed by Gods or mortals.
The sun was within about half an hour of his setting,
and his slant beams, falling through a gap in the western
hills, streamed down into the little valley, casting long
stripes of alternate light and shadow over the smoothly
shaven lawn, sparkling upon the ripples of the streamlet,
and gilding the embrowned or yellow foliage of the sere
hill-sides, with brighter and more vivid colors.
At this pleasant hour, notwithstanding the lateness of the
season, and looking upon this pleasant scene, a group of
females were collected, under the rustic colonnade of Italian
marble, engaged in some of those light toils, which in
feminine hands are so graceful.
The foremost of these, seated apart somewhat from the
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others, were the stately and still beautiful Hortensia, and
her lovely daughter, both of them employed in twirling the
soft threads from the merrily revolving spindle, into large
osier baskets; and the elder lady, glancing at times toward
the knot of slave girls, as if to see that they performed
their light tasks; and at times, if their mirth waxed
too loud, checking it by a gesture of her elevated finger.
A little while before, Julia had been singing in her sweet
low voice, one of those favorite old ballads, which were so
much prized by the Romans, and to which Livy is probably
so much indebted for the redundant imagery of his
“pictured page,” commemorative of the deeds and virtues of the Old Houses.
But, as her lay came to its end, her eye had fallen on the
broad blood-red disc of the descending day-god, and had
followed him upon his downward path, until he was lost to
view, among the tangled coppices that fringed the brow
of the western hill.
Her hands dropped listlessly into her lap, releasing the
snow-white thread, which they had drawn out so daintily;
and keeping her eyes still fixed steadily on the point where
he had disappeared, she gave vent to her feelings in a long-drawn
`heigho!' in every language, and in all times, expression
of sentimental sadness.
“Wherefore so sad a sigh, my Julia?” asked Hortensia,
gazing affectionately at the saddened brow of the fair girl—
“methinks! there is nothing very melancholy here;
nothing that should call forth repining.”
“See, see Hortensia, how he sinks like a dying warrior,
amid those sanguine clouds,” cried the girl, pointing to the
great orb of the sun, just as its last limb was disappearing.
“And into a couch of bays and myrtles, like that warrior,
when his duty is done, his fame won!” exclaimed
Hortensia, throwing her arm abroad enthusiastically; and
truly the hill-side, behind which he was lost to view, was
feathered thick with the shrubs of which she spoke—“methinks!
there is nought for which to sigh in such a setting,
either of the sun, or the hero!”
“But see, how dark and gloomy he has left all behind
him!—the river which was golden but now, while he smiled
upon it, now that he is gone, is leaden.”
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“But he shall rise again to-morrow, brighter and yet
more glorious; and yet more gloriously shall the stream
blaze back his rising than his setting lustre.”
“Alas! alas! Hortensia!”
“Wherefore, alas, my Julia?”
“For so will not the warrior rise, who sinks forever,
although it may be into a bed of glory! And if the setting
of the sun leave all here lustreless and dark and gloomy,
although that must arise again to-morrow, what must the
setting do of one who shall arise no more for ever; whose
light of life was to one heart, what the sunbeam was to
the streamlet, but which, unlike that sunbeam, shall never
shine on the heart any more, Hortensia.”
“My poor child,” cried the noble matron, affected almost
to tears, “you are thinking of Paullus.”
“When am I not thinking of him, mother?” said the
girl. “Remember, we have left the city, seeking these
quiet shades, in order to eschew that turmoil, that peril, in
the heat of which he is now striving for his country! Remember,
that he will plunge into all that strife, the more
desperately, because he fancies that he was too remiss before!
Remember this, Hortensia; and say, if thou canst,
that I have no cause for sad forebodings!”
“That can I not, my Julia,” she replied—“For who is
there on earth, who knoweth what the next sun shall bring
forth? The sunshine of to-day, oft breeds the storm of
to-morrow—and, again, from the tempest of the eve, how
oft is born the brightest and most happy morning. Wisest
is he, and happiest, my child, who wraps himself in his own
virtue, careless of what the day shall bring to pass, and
confident, that all the shafts of fortune must rebound, harmless
and blunted, from his sure armor of philosophy.”
“Must not the heart have bled, Hortensia, before it can
so involve itself in virtue?—must not such philosophy be
the tardy offspring of great sorrow?”
“For the most part I fear it is so, Julia,” answered the
matron, “but some souls there are so innocent and quiet,
so undisturbed by the outward world, that they have that,
almost by nature, which others only win by suffering and
tears.”
“Cold and unfeeling souls, I fancy,” replied the girl.
“For it appears to me that this philosophy which smiles on
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all spite of fortune, must be akin to selfish and morose indifference.
I see not much to love, Hortensia, or to admire
in the stoic!”
“Nor much more, I imagine,” said Hortensia, not
sorry to draw her mind from the subject which occupied it
so painfully, “in the Epicurean!”
“Much less!” answered Julia, quickly, “his creed is
mere madness and impiety. To believe that the Gods care
nothing for the good or evil—ye Gods!” she interrupted
herself suddenly, almost with a shriek. “What is this? a
slave riding, as if for life, on a foaming horse, from the
cityward. Oh! my prophetic soul, Hortensia!”
And she turned pale as death, although she remained
quite firm and self-possessed.
“It may be nothing, Julia; or it may be good tidings,”
answered Hortensia, although she was in truth scarce less
alarmed, than her daughter, by the unexpected arrival.
“Good tidings travel not so quickly. Beside, what can
there be of good, so unexpected? But we shall know—we
shall know quickly,” and she arose, as if to descend the
steps into the garden, but she sank back again into her seat,
crying, “I am faint, I am sick, here, Hortensia,” and she
laid her hand on her heart as she spoke. “Nay! do not
tarry with me, I pray thee, see what he brings. Anything
but the torture of suspense!”
“I go, I go, my child,” cried the matron, descending the
marble steps to the lawn, on which the slave had just drawn
up his panting horse. “He has a letter in his hand, be of
good courage.”
And a moment afterward she cried out joyously, “It is
in his hand, Julia, Paullus Arvina's hand. Fear nothing.”
And with a quick light step, she returned, and gave the
little slip of vellum into the small white hand, which trembled
so much, that it scarcely could receive it.
“A snow-white dove to thee, kind Venus!” cried the
girl, raising her eyes in gratitude to heaven, before she
broke the seal.
But as she did so, and read the first lines, her face was
again overcast, and her eyes were dilated with wild terror.
“It is so—it is so—Hortensia! I knew—oh! my soul! I
knew it!” and she let fall the letter, and fell back in her
seat almost fainting.
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“What?—what?” exclaimed Hortensia. “It is Arvina's
hand—he must be in life!—what is it, my own Julia?”
“Wounded almost to death!” faltered the girl, in accents
half choked with anguish. “Read! read aloud,
kind mother.”
Alarmed by her daughter's suffering and terror, Hortensia
caught the parchment from her half lifeless fingers, and
scanning its contents hastily with her eyes, read as follows.
“Paullus Arvina, to Julia and Hortensia, greeting!
Your well known constancy and courage give me the confidence
to write frankly to you, concealing nothing. Your
affection makes me sure, that you will hasten to grant my
request. Last night, in a tumult aroused by the desperate
followers of Catiline, stricken down and severely wounded,
I narrowly missed death. Great thanks are due to the
Gods, that the assassin's weapon failed to penetrate to my
vitals. Be not too much alarmed, however; Alexion, Cicero's
friend and physician, has visited me; and declares,
that, unless fever supervene, there is no danger from the
wound. Still, I am chained to my couch, wearily, and in
pain, with none but slaves about me. At such times, the
heart asks for more tender ministering—wherefore I pray
you, Julia, let not one day elapse; but come to me! Hortensia,
by the Gods! bring her to the city! Catiline hath
fled, the peril hath passed over—but lo! I am growing faint—
I can write no more, now—there is a swimming of my
brain, and a cloud over my eyes. Farewell. Come to me
quickly, that it prove not too late—come to me quickly,
if you indeed love Arvina.”
“We will go, Julia. We will go to him instantly,” said
Hortensia—“but be of good cheer, poor child. Alexion
declares, that there is no danger; and no one is so wise as
he! Be of good cheer, we will set forth this night, this
hour! Ere daybreak, we will be in Rome. Hark, Lydia,”
she continued, turning to one of the slave girls, “call
me the steward, old Davus. Let the boy Geta, take the
horse of the messenger; and bring thou the man hither.”
Then she added, addressing Julia, “I will question him
farther, while they prepare the carpentum! Ho, Davus,”—
for the old slave, who was close at hand, entered forthwith—
“Have the mules harnessed, instantly, to the carpentum,
and let the six Thracians, who accompanied us
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from Rome, saddle their horses, and take arms. Ill fortune
has befallen young Arvina; we must return to town
this night—as speedily as may be.”
“Within an hour, Hortensia, all shall be in readiness, on
my head be it, else.”
“It is well—and, hark you! send hither wine and bread—
we will not wait until they make supper ready; beside,
this youth is worn out with his long ride, and needs refreshment.”
As the steward left the room, she gazed attentively at
the young slave, who had brought the despatch, and, not recognising
his features, a half feeling of suspicion crossed
her mind; so that she stooped and whispered to Julia, who
looked up hastily and answered,
“No—no—but what matters it? It is his handwriting,
and his signet.”
“I do not know,” said Hortensia, doubtfully—“I think
he would have sent one of the older men; one whom we
knew; I think he would have sent Medon”—Then she
said to the boy, “I have never seen thy face before, I believe,
good youth. How long hast thou served Arvina?”
“Since the Ides of October, Hortensia. He purchased
me of Marcus Crassus.”
“Purchased thee, Ha?” said Hortensia, yet more doubtfully
than before—“that is strange. His household was
large enough already. How came he then to purchase
thee?”
“I was hired out by Crassus, as is his wont to do, to
Crispus the sword-smith, in the Sacred Way—a cruel tyrant
and oppressor, whom, when he was barbarously scourging
me for a small error, noble Arvina saw; and then,
finding his intercession fruitless, purchased me, as he said,
that thereafter I should be entreated as a man, not as a
beast of burthen.”
“It is true! by the Gods!” exclaimed the girl, clasping
her hands enthusiastically, and a bright blush coming up
into her pale face. “Had I been told the action, without
the actor's name, I should have known therein Arvina.”
“Thou shouldst be grateful, therefore, to this good Arvina”—
said Hortensia, gazing at him with a fixed eye, she
knew not wherefore, yet with a sort of dubious presentiment
of coming evil.
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“Grateful!” cried the youth, clasping his hands fervently
together—“ye Gods! grateful! Hortensia, by your
head! I worship him—I would die for him.”
“How came he to send thee on this mission? Why
sent he not Medon, or Euphranor, or one of his elder freedmen?”
“Medon, he could not send, nor Euphranor. It went
ill with them both, in that affray, wherein my lord was
wounded. The older slaves keep watch around this bed;
the strongest and most trusty, are under arms in the Atrium.”
“And wert thou with him, in that same affray?”
“I was with him, Hortensia.”
“When fell it out, and for what cause?”
“Hast thou not heard, Hortensia?—has he not told you?
by the Gods! I thought, the world had known it. How before
Catiline, may it be ill with him and his, went forth
from the city, he and his friends and followers attacked the
Consuls, on the Palatine, with armed violence. It was
fought through the streets doubtfully, for near three hours;
and the fortunes of the Republic were at stake, and well
nigh despaired of, if not lost. Cicero was down on the
pavement, and Catiline's sword flashing over him, when,
with his slaves and freedmen, my master cut his way
through the ranks of the conspiracy, and bore off the great
magistrate unharmed. But, as he turned, a villain buried
his sica in his back, and though he saved the state, he
well nigh lost his life, to win everlasting fame, and the love
of all good citizens!”
“Hast seen him since he was wounded?” exclaimed
Julia, who had devoured every word he uttered, with insatiable
longing and avidity.
“Surely,” replied the boy. “I received that scroll from
his own hands—my orders from his own lips—`spare not
an instant,' he said, `Jason; tarry not, though you kill your
steed. If you would have me live, let Julia see this letter
before midnight.' It lacks as yet, four hours of midnight.
Doth it not, noble Julia?”
“Five, I think. But how looked, how spoke he? Is
he in great pain, Jason? how seemed he, when you left
him?”
“He was very pale, Julia—very wan, and his lips ashy
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white. His voice faltered very much, moreover, and when
he had made an end of speaking, he swooned away. I
heard that he was better somewhat, ere I set out to come
hither; but the physician speaks of fever to be apprehended,
on any irritation or excitement. Should you delay
long in visiting him, I fear the consequences might be perilous
indeed.”
“Do you hear? do you hear that, Hortensia? By the
Gods! Let us go at once! we need no preparation!”
“We will go, Julia. Old Davus' hour hath nearly passed
already. We will be in the city before day-break!
Fear not, my sweet one, all shall go well with our beloved
Paullus.”
“The Gods grant it!”
“Here is wine, Jason,” said Hortensia. “Drink, boy,
you must needs be weary after so hard a gallop. You
have done well, and shall repose here this night. To-morrow,
when well rested and refreshed, you shall follow us
to Rome.”
“Pardon me, lady,” said the youth. “I am not weary;
love for Arvina hath prevailed over all weariness! Furnish
me, I beseech you, with a fresh horse; and let me go
with you.”
“It shall be as you wish,” said Hortensia, “but your
frame seems too slender, to endure much labor.”
“The Gods have given me a willing heart, Hortensia—
and the strong will makes strong the feeble body.”
“Well spoken, youth. Your devotion shall lose you
nothing, believe me. Come, Julia, let us go and array us
for the journey. The nights are cold now, in December,
and the passes of the Algidus are bleak and gusty.”
The ladies left the room; and, before the hour, which
Davus had required, was spent, they were seated together
in the rich carpentum, well wrapped in the soft many-colored
woollen fabrics, which supplied the place of furs
among the Romans—it being considered a relic of barbarism,
to wear the skins of beasts, until the love for this decoration
again returned in the last centuries of the Empire.
Old Davus grasped the reins; two Thracian slaves, well
mounted, and armed with the small circular targets and
lances of their native land, gallopped before the carriage,
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accompanied by the slave who had brought the message,
while four more similarly equipped brought up the rear;
and thus, before the moon had arisen, travelling at a rapid
pace, they cleared the cultivated country, and were involved
in the wild passes of Mount Algidus.
Scarcely, however, had they wound out of sight, when
gallopping at mad and reckless speed, down a wild wood-road
on the northern side of the villa, there came a horseman
bestriding a white courser, of rare symmetry and action,
now almost black with sweat, and envelopped with
foam-flakes.
The rider was the same singular-looking dark-complexioned
boy, who had overheard the exclamation of Aulus
Fulvius, concerning young Arvina, uttered at the head of
the street Argiletum.
His body was bent over the rude saddle-bow with weariness,
and he reeled to and fro, as if he would have fallen
from his horse, when he pulled up at the door of the villa.
“I would speak,” he said in a faint and faltering voice,
“presently, with Hortensia—matters of life and death depend
on it.”
“The Gods avert the omen!” cried the woman, to whom
he had addressed himself, “Hortensia hath gone but now
to Rome, with young Julia, on the arrival of a message
from Arvina.”
“Too late! too late!”—cried the boy, beating his breast
with both hands. “They are betrayed to death or dishonor!”
“How? what is this? what say you?” cried the chief
slave of the farm, a person of some trust and importance,
who had just come up.
“It was a tall slight fair-haired slave who bore the message—
he called himself Jason—he rode a bay horse, did
he not?” asked the new comer.
“He was! He did! A bay horse, with one white foot
before, and a white star on his forehead. A rare beast
from Numidia, or Cyrenaica,” replied the steward, who
was quite at home in the article of horse-flesh.
“He brought tidings that Arvina is sorely wounded?”
“He brought tidings! Therefore it was that they set
forth at so short notice! He left the horse here, and was
mounted on a black horse of the farm.”
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“Arvina is not wounded! That bay horse is Cethegus',
the conspirator's! Arvina hath sent no message! They
are betrayed, I tell you, man. Aulus Fulvius awaits them
with a gang of desperadoes in the deep cleft of the hills,
where the cross-road comes in by which you reach the Flaminian
from the Labican way. Arm yourselves speedily and
follow, else will they carry Julia to Catiline's camp in the
Appenines, beside Fiesole! What there will befall her,
Catiline's character best may inform you! Come—to
arms—men! to horse, and follow!”
But ignorant of the person of the messenger, lacking
an authorized head, fearful of taking the responsibility,
and incurring the reproach, perhaps the punishment, of
credulity, they loitered and hesitated; and, though they
did at length get to horse and set out in pursuit, it was not
till Hortensia's cavalcade had been gone above an hour.
Meanwhile, unconscious of what had occurred behind
them, and eager only to arrive at Rome as speedily as possible,
the ladies journeyed onward, with full hearts, in silence,
and in sorrow.
There is a deep dark gorge in the mountain chain,
through which this road lay, nearly a mile in length; with
a fierce torrent on one hand, and a sheer face of craggy
rocks towering above it on the other. Beyond the torrent,
the chesnut woods hung black and gloomy along the precipitous
slopes, with their ragged tree-tops distinctly marked
against the clear obscure of the nocturnal sky.
Midway this gorge, a narrow broken path comes down
a cleft in the rocky wall on the right hand side, as you go
toward Rome, by which through a wild and broken country
the Flaminian way can be reached, and by it the district
of Etruria and the famous Val d'Arno.
They had just reached this point, and were congratulating
themselves, on having thus accomplished the most difficult
part of their journey, when the messenger, who rode
in front, uttered a long clear whistle.
The twang of a dozen bowstrings followed, from some
large blocks of stone which embarrassed the pass at the
junction of the two roads, and both the Thracians who preceded
the carriage, went down, one of them killed outright,
the other, with his horse shot dead under him.
“Ho! Traitor!” shouted the latter, extricating himself
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from the dead charger, and hurling his javelin with fatal
accuracy at the false slave, “thou at least shalt not boast of
thy villainy! Treachery! treachery! Turn back, Hortensia!
Fly, avus! to me! to me, comrades!”
But with a loud shout, down came young Aulus Fulvius,
from the pass, armed, head to foot, as a Roman legionary
soldier—down came the gigantic smith Caius Crispus, and
fifteen men, at least, with blade and buckler, at his back.
The slaves fought desperately for their mistress' liberty
or life; but the odds were too great, both in numbers and
equipment; and not five minutes passed, before they were
all cut down, and stretched out, dead or dying, on the
rocky floor of the dark defile.
The strife ended, Aulus Fulvius strode quickly to the
carpentum, which had been overturned in the affray, and
which his lawless followers were already ransacking.
One of these wretches, his own namesake Aulus, the
sword-smith's foreman, had already caught Julia in his licentious
grasp, and was about to press his foul lips to her
cheek, when the young patrician snatched her from his
arms, and pushed him violently backward.
“Ho! fool and villain!” he exclaimed, “Darest thou to
think such dainties are for thee? She is sacred to Catiline
and vengeance!”
“This one, at least, then!” shouted the ruffian, making
at Hortensia.
“Nor that one either!” cried the smith interposing; but
as Aulus, the foreman, still struggled to lay hold of the Patrician
lady, he very coolly struck him across the bare brow
with the edge of his heavy cutting sword, cleaving him
down to the teeth—“Nay! then take that, thou fool.”—
Then turning to Fulvius, he added; “He was a brawler
always, and would have kept no discipline, now or ever.”
“Well done, smith!” replied Aulus Fulvius. “The
same fate to all who disobey orders! We have no time
for dalliance now; it will be day ere long, and we must be
miles hence ere it dawns! Bind me Hortensia, firmly, to
yon chesnut tree, stout smith; but do not harm her. We
too have mothers!” he added with a singular revulsion of
feeling at such a moment. “For you, my beauty, we will
have you consoled by a warmer lover than that most shallow-pated
fool and sophist, Arvina. Come! I say come!
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no one shall harm you!” and without farther words, despite
all her struggles and remonstrances, he bound a
handkerchief tightly under her chin to prevent her cries,
wrapped her in a thick crimson pallium, and springing upon
his charger, with the assistance of the smith, placed her
before him on the saddle-cloth, and set off a furious pace,
through the steep by-path, leaving the defile tenanted only
by the dying and the dead, with the exception of Hortensia,
who rent the deaf air in vain with frantic cries of anguish,
until at last she fainted, nature being to weak for the
endurance of such prolonged agony.
About an hour afterward, she was released and carried
to her Roman mansion, alive and unharmed in body, but
almost frantic with despair, by the party of slaves who had
come up, too late to save her Julia, under the guidance of
the young unknown.
He, when he perceived that his efforts had been useless,
and when he learned how Julia had been carried off by
the conspirators, leaving the party to escort Hortensia,
and bear their slaughtered comrades homeward, rode
slowly and thoughtfully away, into the recesses of the wild
country whither Aulus had borne his captive, exclaiming in
a low silent voice with a clinched hand, and eyes turned
heavenward, “I will die, ere dishonor reach her! Aid me!
aid me, thou Nemesis—aid me to save, and avenge!”
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CHAPTER IX. THE MULVIAN BRIDGE.
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Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die!
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
On that same night, and nearly at the same hour wherein
the messenger of Aulus Fulvius arrived at the Latin
villa, there was a splendid banquet given in a house near
the forum.
It was the house of Decius Brutus, unworthy bearer of
a time-honored name, the husband of the infamous Sempronia.
At an earlier hour of the evening, a great crowd had
been gathered round the doors, eager to gaze on the ambassadors
of the Highland Gauls, who, their mission to
Rome ended unsuccessfully, feasted there for the last time
previous to their departure.
As it grew dark, however, tired of waiting in the hope
of seeing the plaided warriors depart, the throng had dispersed,
and with exception of the city watches and the
cohorts, which from hour to hour perambulated them, the
streets were unusually silent, and almost deserted.
There was no glare of lights from the windows of Brutus'
house, as there would be in these days, and in modern
mansions, to indicate the scene of festivity; for it was in
the inmost chamber, of the most secluded suite of apartments,
that the boards had been spread for the comissatio,
or nocturnal revel.
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The cæna, or dinner, had been partaken by all the guests
previous to their arrival at their entertainer's, and the tables
were laid only with light dainties and provocatives to
thirst, such as salted meats and fishes, the roe of the sturgeon
highly seasoned, with herbs and fruits, and pastry
and confections, of all kinds.
Rich urns, with heaters, containing hot spiced wines,
prepared with honey, smoked on the boards of costly citrean
wood, intermixed with crystal vases filled with the
rarest vintages of the Falernian hills, cooled and diluted
with snow-water.
And around the circular tables, on the tapestried couches,
reclined the banqueters of both sexes, quaffing the rich
wines to strange toasts, jesting, and laughing wildly, singing
at times themselves as the myrtle branch and the lute
went round, at times listening to the licentious chaunts of
the unveiled and almost unrobed dancing girls, or the obscene
and scurrilous buffoonery of the mimes and clowns,
who played so conspicuous a part in the Roman entertainments
of a later period.
Among these banqueters there was not a single person
not privy to the conspiracy, and few who have not been
introduced already to the acquaintance of the reader, but
among these few was Sempronia—Sempronia, who could
be all things, at all times, and to all persons—who with all
the softness and grace and beauty of the most feminine of
her sex, possessed all the daring, energy, vigor, wisdom
of the bravest and most intriguing man—accomplished to
the utmost in all the liberal arts, a poetess and minstrel
unrivalled by professional performers, a dancer more finished
and voluptuous than beseemed a Roman matron, a
scholar in both tongues, the Greek as well as her own,
and priding herself on her ability to charm the gravest and
most learned sages by the modesty of her bearing and the
wealth of her intellect, as easily as the most profligate debauchees
by her facetious levity, her loose wit, and her
abandonment of all restraint to the wildest license.
On this evening she had strained every nerve to fascinate,
to dazzle, to astonish.
She had danced as a bacchanal, with her luxuriant hair
dishevelled beneath a crown of vine leaves, with her bright
shoulders and superb bust displayed at every motion by
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the displacement of the panther's skin, which alone covered
them, timing her graceful steps to the clang of the silver
cymbals which she waved and clashed with her bare
arms above her stately head, and showing off the beauties
of her form in attitudes more classically graceful, more
studiously indelicate, than the most reckless figurante of
our days.
She had sung every species of melody and rythm, from
the wildest dithyrambic to the severest and most grave
alcaic; she had struck the lute, calling forth notes such as
might have performed the miracles attributed to Orpheus
and Amphion.
She had exerted her unrivalled learning so far as to discourse
eloquently in the uncouth and almost unknown
tongues of Germany and Gaul.
For she had Gaulish hearers, Gaulish admirers, whom,
whether from mere female vanity, whether from the awakening
of some strange unbridled passion, or whether from
some deeper cause, she was bent on delighting.
For mixed in brilliant contrast with the violet and flower
enwoven tunics, with the myrtle-crowned perfumed love-locks
of the Roman feasters, were seen the gay and manychequered
plaids, the jewelled weapons, and loose lionlike
tresses of the Gallic Highlanders, and the wild blue
eyes, sharp and clear as the untamed falcon's, gazing in
wonder or glancing in childlike simplicity at the strange
scenes and gorgeous luxuries which amazed all their
senses.
The tall and powerful young chief, who had on several
occasions attracted the notice of Arvina, and whom he had
tracked but a few days before into this very house, reclined
on the same couch with its accomplished mistress, and
it was on him that her sweetest smiles, her most speaking
glances were levelled, for him that her charms were displayed
so unreservedly and boldly.
And the eyes of the young Gaul flashed at times a
strange fire, but it was difficult to tell, if it were indignation
or desire that kindled that sharp flame—and his cheek
burned with a hectic and unwonted hue, but whether it
was the hue of shame or passion, what eye could determine.
One thing alone was evident, that he encouraged her in
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her wild licence, and affected, if he did not feel, the most
decided admiration for her beauty.
His hand had toyed with hers, his fingers had strayed
through the mazes of her superb raven ringlets, his lip had
pressed hers unrebuked, and his ear had drunk in long
murmuring low-breathed sighs, and whispers unheard by
any other.
Her Roman lovers, in other words two-thirds of those
present, for she was no chary dame, looked at each other,
some with a sneering smile, some with a shrewd and knowing
glance, and some with ill-dissembled jealousy, but not
one of them all, so admirable was her dissimulation—if
that may be called admirable, which is most odious—could
satisfy himself, whether she was indeed captivated by the
robust and manly beauty of the young barbarian, or
whether it was merely a piece of consummate acting, the
more to attach him to their cause.
It might have been observed had the quick eye of Catiline
been there, prompt to read human hearts as if they
were written books—that the older envoys looked with suspicious
and uneasy glances, at the demeanor of their young
associate, that they consulted one another from time to time
with grave and searching eyes, and that once or twice, when
Sempronia, who alone of those present understood their
language, was at a distance, they uttered a few words in
Gaelic, not in the most agreeable or happiest accent.
Wilder and wilder waxed the revelry, and now the
slaves withdrew, and breaking off into pairs or groups, the
guests dispersed themselves among the peristyles, dimly illuminated
with many twinkling lamps, and shrubberies of
myrtle and laurestinus which adorned the courts and gardens
of the proud mansions.
Some to plot deeds of private revenge, private cruelty—
some to arrange their schemes of public insurrection—
some to dally in secret corners with the fair patricians—
some to drain mightier draughts than they had yet partaken,
some to gamble for desperate stakes, all to drown care
and the anguish of conscious guilt, in the fierce pleasure of
excitement.
Apart from the rest, stood two of the elder Gauls, in
deep and eager conference—one the white-headed chief,
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and leader of the embassy, the other a stately and noble-looking
man of some forty-five or fifty years.
They were watching their comrade, who had just stolen
away, with one arm twined about the fair Sempronia's
waist, and her hand clasped in his, through the inner peristyle,
into the women's chambers.
“Feargus, I doubt him,” said the old man in a low guarded
whisper. “I doubt him very sorely. These Roman
harlots are made to bewitch any man, much more us Gael,
whose souls kindle at a spark!”
“It is true, Phadraig,” answered the other, still speaking
in their own tongue. “Saw ever any man such infamy?—
And these—these dogs, and goats, call us barbarians!
Us, by the Spirit of Thunder! who would die fifty deaths
every hour, ere we would see our matrons, nay! but our
matrons' basest slaves, demean themselves as these patricians!
Base, carnal, bloody-minded beasts are they—and
yet forsooth they boast themselves the masters of the
world.”
“Alas! that it should be so, Feargus,” answered the
other. “But so it is, that they are masters, and shall be
masters yet awhile, but not long. I have heard, I have
seen among the mist of our water-falls, the avalanches of
our hills, the voices and the signs of Rome's coming ruin,
but not yet. Therefore it is that I counselled peace.”
“I know that thou art Taishatr, the great seer of our
people,” replied the other with an expression of deep awe
on his features—“Shall Rome indeed so perish!”
“She shall, Feargus. Her sons shall forget the use of
the blade, her daughters of the distaff—for heroes and warriors
she shall bring forth pipers and fiddlers, pandars and
posturers; for heroines and matrons, songstresses, dancing
girls, and harlots. The beginning thou seest now, the end
cometh not in ages.”
“And our people, Phadraig, our northern races”—
“Shall govern and despise them! our arms shall carry
devastation into regions of which their Consuls never
heard, and under Gaelic eagles; our men shall wield thunder
louder and deadlier, than the bolts of Roman Gods. I
have said, Feargus. It shall be, but not yet; nor shall our
eyes behold it; but it shall soothe us yet, in these days of
our country's desolation, to know how great she shall be
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hereafter, and these how less than little—the very name of
Roman synonimous with slavery and degradation!”
There was a long pause, during which neither of the
chieftains spoke, the one musing over the strange visions,
which are phenomena by no means unusual to mountaineers,
in all ages; the other dreaming of future glory to his
race, and aroused by the predictions of the seer, to an ecstacy,
as it were, of expectant triumph.
“Enough of this”—said the old man, at length. “As I
said but now, I doubt Eachin sorely.”
“If he prove false, I will stab him to the heart, with my
own hand, though he be my father's brother's grandson, and
the best warrior of our tribe; but no, no, Phadraig, the boy
is young, and his blood is hot and fiery; and the charms of
that witch might well move a colder spirit—but he is true
as steel, and wise and wary for one so young. He may
sun himself in her smiles, or revel on her lips, but trust me,
Eachin of the iron hand, will never betray council.”
“Keep your eye on him, nevertheless, Feargus,” said the
other, “and, as you said but now, kill him at once, if you
perceive him false.”
“Ha! what! noble Patricius?” cried Lentulus, coming
up to them suddenly, and addressing the old chief by his
latinized name—“what is this that thou arguest so sagely,
in thy sonorous and male tongue.”
“The might and majesty of Rome,” answered the old
man quietly, “and our people's misery and degradation.”
“Nay! nay! chief, be not downhearted. Look upward
now, after dark night comes brilliant morning,” said the Roman.
“Your people shall rise ere long, to power and glory
and dominion.”
“So I told Feargus.”
“Ha! the brave Ferragus! and doth he not credit your
wisdom's prophecy.”
“I put all faith in Rome's gratitude, in Catiline's valor
and justice.”
“Aye! when we once have put down this faction, we
will do justice to our friends.”
“And we are of the number!”
“Surely, the twenty thousand horse, which you have
promised us, are twenty thousand pledges of your friendship,
as many claims on our favor.”
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“See, here comes Eachin,” said the old man; “and
time wears onward, it is nigh midnight. We must away to
our lodgings. Our train awaits us, and we but tarry for
your envoy and the letters.”
“Titus Volturcius! I will go fetch him hither. He hath
our letters sealed and ready. He is but draining a last
cup, with our brave Cethegus. I will go fetch him.” And,
with the words, he turned away, gathering his toga in superb
draperies about his stately person, and traversing the
corridor with proud and measured strides, and as he went,
muttered through his teeth—“The fool barbarians! As if
we would give them anything but chains and scourges!
The poor benighted idiots!”
“Ho, Eachin, where left you our fair hostess?” asked
Feargus in Latin—“methinks you are smitten somewhat
with her beauty!”
“She is very beautiful!” said the old chieftain gravely.
“Beautiful! Feargus! Phadraig! beautiful, did ye say?”
and the youth gazed at them in wonder, “That vile sensual,
soulless harlot! she beautiful! Then virtue must be
base indeed, and honor shameful!” he cried, with noble
indignation, in his own Gaëlic tongue, his eyes flashing,
and his cheek burning crimson.
“Why, if you held her then so cheaply, have you so
much affected her society?”
“Oh! you suspect me, Feargus. But it needs not. The
barbarian hath some shrewdness, and some honesty. Sempronia
too, suspected us, and would have won my secret
from me, had I indeed a secret, by sweet words and
sweeter kisses.”
“And thou”—
“Gave kiss for kiss, with interest; and soft word for
soft word. I have sighed as if I were any Roman—but
no secret, Feargus; Phadraig, no secret. Do you doubt
me?”
“Not I, boy,” answered the warrior. “Your father was
my cousin, and I think you are not a bastard.”
“I think not either. But see, here come these noble
Romans!”
“It is their envoy with the letters for their leader. We
shall be dismissed now, from this haunt of thieves and harlots!”
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“And laughed at, when dismissed, for fools and barbarians!”
“One never knows who is the fool, till the game is lost.”
“Nor who is laughed at 'till it is won!”
“Here is our Titus, my good friends,” said Lentulus,
coming forward, leading along with him a slightly-made but
well-formed and active-looking man, with a downcast yet
roving eye, and a sneering lip, as if he were one who believing
nothing, deserved not to be believed in anything
himself. “He hath the letters, and credentials secured on
his person. On his introduction, our Catiline shall know
you as true friends, and as such receive and reward you!”
“Titus Volturcius, is welcome. We tarried but for
him, we will now take our leaves, with thanks for your
gracious courtesies.”
“A trifle, a mere trifle,” said Sempronia, who had that
moment returned—“We only desired to teach you how
we Romans live in our homes daily.”
“A very pleasant lesson, ha! my young friend”—said
Lentulus to Eachin; and then he said out to Cethegus,
in Greek, “I am compelled to call the Highland bull my
friend, for his accursed name would break the jaws of any
Roman—there is no twisting it into Latin!”
“Hush! he will hear you, Lentulus,” said the other.
“I believe the brutes hear with their eyes, and understand
through their finger-ends,” and he too used the same language;
yet, strange to say, it would have seemed as if the
young man did in some sort comprehend his words, for his
cheek turned fiery red, and he bit his lip, and played nervously
with the hilt of the claymore.
“Thou will not forget the lesson!” whispered Sempronia.
“Never!” replied the Highlander. “Never while one
red drop runs in these veins. And the last drop in them
will I shed gladly, to teach these noble Romans how grateful
a barbarian can be, poor though he be and half savage,
for being thus instructed in Roman hospitality and Roman
virtue! Farewell, ye noble Senators, farewell most beautiful
and noble matron!”
And with deep salutations, half dignified, half awkward,
the Gauls strode away, into the quiet and moon-lighted
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streets, strange contrast to the glare and riot of those
patrician halls and polluted chambers.
“A singular speech that!” said Cethegus musing. “It
sounded much as if it might bear a double meaning! could
it be irony and cover treason?”
“Irony in a stupid Gaul! thou art mad, Cethegus, to
think of it!” said Autronius with a sneer.
“I should as soon look for wit in an elephant,” said
Longinus Cassius.
“Or I for love in a cold lizard!” cried Sempronia,
laughing.
“You found some love in the barbarian, I think, my
Sempronia?” exclaimed Cethegus.
“More warmth than wit, I assure you,” she replied still
laughing. “I acted my part with him rarely. If he
were inclined once to play us false, he is bound to us now
by chains”—
“Of roses, fair one?”
“Never mind. If he break them, call me”—
“Chaste? Sempronia”—enquired Cæparius, interrupting
her.
“Audacious!” she answered with an affected frown,
amid the laugh which followed the retort.
“What do you think of it, my Lentulus?” asked Cethegus,
who although he had jested with the others, did not
by any means appear satisfied in his mind, or convinced of
the good faith of the Highlanders.
“That it is two hours now past midnight,” answered
Lentulus yawning, “and that I am amazing sleepy. I
was not in bed till the third watch last night, writing those
letters, ill luck to them. That is what I think, Cethegus.
And that I am going to bed now, to trouble myself about
the matter no more, until the Saturnalia.”
And so that company broke up, never to meet again, on
this side Hades.
Not long thereafter the Gauls, having reached their
lodgings at the house of their patron Fabius Sanga, where
everything had been prepared already for their departure,
mounted their horses, and set forth on their way homeward,
accompanied by a long train of armed followers;
Titus Volturcius riding in the first rank, between the principal
chiefs of the party.
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The moon had risen; and the night was almost as clear
as day, for a slight touch of frost had banished all the vapors
from the sky, and the stars sparkled with unusual
brilliancy.
Although it was clear and keen, however, the night was
by no means cold, as it would have been under the like
circumstances in our more northern climes; and the gardens
in the suburbs of the city with their numerous clumps
of stone-pine, and thickets of arbutus and laurestinus, looked
rich and gay with their polished green foliage, long after
the deciduous trees had dropped their sere leaves on the
steamy earth.
No sounds came to the ears of the travellers, as they
rode at that dead hour of night through the deserted
streets; the whole of the vast city appeared to be hushed
in deep slumber, soon, Caius Volturcuis boasted as they
rode along, to burst like a volcano into the din and glare
of mighty conflagration.
They met not a single individual, as they threaded the
broad suburra with their long train of slaves and led-horses;
not one as they passed through the gorge between the Viminal
and Quirinal hills, nor as they scaled the summit of
the latter eminence, and reached the city walls, where
they overlooked Sallust's gardens in the valley, and on the
opposite slope, the perfumed hill of flowers.
A sleepy sentinel unbarred the gate for the ambassadors,
while four or five of his comrades sat dozing in their armor
around a stove, in the centre of the little guard-house, or
replenishing their horn cups, at short intervals, from an
urn of hot wine, which hissed and simmered on the hearth.
“Excellent guard they keep!” said Volturcius sneeringly,
“right trusty discipline! of much avail would such
watchers be, were Catiline without the walls, with ten
thousand men, of Sylla's veterans.”
“And is your Catiline so great a captain?” asked the
Highlander.
“The best in Rome, since Sylla is no more! He learned
the art of war under that grand, that consummate soldier!
He was scarce second to him in his life time!”
“Why, then, hath Rome found no service for him?”
asked the Gaul. “If he, as you say, is so valiant and so
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skillful, why hath he not commanded in the east, in place
of Pompey, or Lucullus?”
“Jealousy is the bane of Rome! jealousy and corruption!
Catiline will not pander to the pride of the insolent
patricians, nor buy of them employments or honors with
his gold.”
“And is he free from this corruption?”
“No man on earth of more tried integrity! While all
of Rome beside is venal, his hand alone is conscious of no
bribe, his heart alone incorruptible!”
“Thou must be a true friend of his; all men speak not
so highly of this Catiline.”
“Some men lie! touching him specially, they lie!”
“By the Gods! I believe so!” answered the old Gaul,
with calm irony.
“By Mars! and Apollo! they lie foully!”
“I think I have heard one, at least, do so.”
“Thou shalt hear hundreds, if thou listen to them.”
“So many?”
“Aye! by the Gods!—most of the—by your head! Patricius,
that was a man, I think; armed too; who looked
forth from behind yon buttress of the bridge.”
“No! no! Volturcius, 'twas but the shadow of yon pine
tree, waving athwart the moonlight. I marked it long
since,” answered the wily Gaul. “Proceed, I pray you—
most of the what, wert thou about to say?”
But, by this time, the speakers had advanced to the centre
of the long Mulvian bridge, a magnificent stone structure
crossing the broad and sluggish Tiber, two miles below
the city; and giving access to the far-famed Flaminian
way.
Their train, following closely after them, had all entered
into the defile, the last of them having already passed the
abutment nearest to Rome, when a loud shout arose from
either side the bridge; and from the thickets and gardens
at each extremity forth rushed a band of stout youths
armed with casques and cuirasses of bronze, with the oblong
shields and Spanish stabbing swords of the legionaries.
Each band was led by a Prætor, Lucius Valerius Flaccus
commanding at the end next Rome, and Caius Pomptinus,
on the Emilian way, and each fell into accurate and
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beautiful array, barring the outlets of the bridge with a
triple file of bright blades and sturdy bucklers.
Nor was this all; for a little party was pushed forward
on each flank, with bows and javelins, ready to enfilade
the narrow pass with cross shot of their missiles, in case
any attempt should be made to force a passage. And at
the end, moreover, of the bridge toward Etruria and the
camp of Catiline, at which such an attempt was most likely
to occur, the glittering helmets and crimson horsehair
crests of a troop of cavalry were seen glancing in the
moonbeams, as they wheeled into line behind the footmen,
ready to charge at once should the infantry be broken.
“Stand! stand!” cried the soldiery at each end. “Stand
and surrender!”
But the younger men of the Gauls, unsheathing their
claymores, set up their terrible slogan, or Celtic battle
cry; and, plunging their spurs into the sides of their fiery
horses came thundering across the bridge with a charge
that would probably have trodden the Prætor's infantry under
foot, had not the old chief, whom the Romans called
Patricius, and Ferragus reined their steeds suddenly across
the way, calling upon their men to halt and be steady.
But Volturcius, knowing too well the consequence of
being taken, dashed forward with his sword drawn; and
made a desperate attempt to cut his way through the infantry,
striking down two or three, slashing and stabbing
to the right and left, displaying singular skill in the use of
his weapon, and extreme personal intrepidity.
“Treason! treason, my friends!” he shouted. “Ho,
Ferragus, Patricius, ho! Charge, charge, men, gallantly.
They are but a handful!” and still he plied his blade,
which was now crimson to the hilt, with fearful energy.
“No! no! not so!” cried the ambassadors—“lay down
your arms! it is the prætor's train. Lay down your arms!
all shall be well, if you resist not.”
And at the same time, “Yield thee! yield thee! Volturcius,”
cried Pomptinus. “We are friends all; and would
not hurt thee—but have thee we must, and thy letters.—
Dost thou not know me, Titus?”
“Very well, Caius,” cried the other, still fighting desperately
against a host; for the men were commanded not
to kill, but to take him alive at all hazards. “I know thee
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very well; but I will not yield to thee! So take that,
Prætor!” and, with the word, he dealt him a blow on his
crest that brought him to his knee in a moment.
“He is a mad man!” cried a veteran legionary. “We
must kill him!”
“Not for your lives,” shouted Pomptinus, and springing
to his feet he plunged his sword home into his horse's
chest, up to the very hilt; and then leaping on one side
nimbly, as the animal fell headlong, being slain outright,
he seized Volturcius by the shoulder, and pulled him down
from the saddle.
But even at this disadvantage, the conspirator renewed
the single combat with the prætor; until at length, assured
by his repeated promises that his life should be spared, he
yielded his sword to that officer, and adjuring him in the
name of all the Gods! to protect him, gave himself up a
prisoner, as if to avowed enemies.
Those of the Gauls, who had been ignorant, at first,
what was in progress, perceiving now that the whole matter
had been arranged with the concurrence of their chiefs,
submitted quietly; and two or three of the prætor's people
who had been wounded being accommodated with temporary
litters made of bucklers and javelins with watch
cloaks thrown over them, the whole party turned their
horses' heads, and directed their march toward Rome.
And silence, amid which the gentle murmur of the river,
and the sigh of the breeze were distinctly audible, succeeded
to the clang of arms, and the shouts of the combatants,
unheard for many a year, so near to the walls of
the world's metropolis.
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CHAPTER X. THE ARREST.
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Rebellious subjects; Enemies of peace.
Romeo and Juliet.
It was already daylight, when the loud clang and clatter
of a squadron passing along the streets, at a sharp trot,
aroused the citizens of Rome from their beds, for though
the morning had broke, it was still very early.
Many a lattice was opened, and many a head thrust out,
as the troopers swept along with all their accoutrements
jingling and clashing through the early silence, a spectacle
which in ordinary times, would have excited much astonishment,
perhaps aroused a tumult, since it was in direct
opposition to the laws, that armed soldiers should enter the
city walls in time of peace.
But so much had the public mind been disturbed of
late, that the sight, which a month before would have filled
the streets with anxious or angry multitudes, now hardly
seemed to merit a second glance, and the spectators hurried
back to their couches, invoking the aid of the good
Consul, who watched so well over the liberties and lives of
Rome, or muttering curses on his head, according as they
were well or ill-afflicted toward the state.
One man there was, however, who was awakened by the
clatter from the deep sleep of drunkenness, with a flushed
face and an aching head, in a house on the Clivus Scauri,
a steep street running down the southern slope of the
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Palatine, into the Cerolian Place, and overlooking the mansion
of Cicero.
Starting up from his low couch, he called out sharply
and with a querulous accent to a freedman, who was
watching his feverish slumbers, desiring him to look out
and see what made that clatter.
The man passed quickly into an adjoining room which
commanded a view of the street, and returned instantly,
saying,
“It is a squadron of horse, Cæparius. Young Arvina's,
I think; and they appear to be conducting a prisoner,
for there is one man among them, in his tunic and abolla
only, while the troopers around him have their swords
drawn.”
Sobered at once, the conspirator leaped from his couch,
and almost overthrew the attendant, in his eagerness to
reach the window in time to observe the troopers.
They were just halting in the Cerolian place, when he
saw them, and dismounting, chargers and men in a confused
and dusty group before the door of Cicero.
He gazed, as if his eyes would burst from their sockets,
if possibly he might distinguish the wearer of the rich blue
riding cloak, of which he could catch glimpses among the
glittering corslets and scarlet cassocks of the legionary
horse. But for a while he gazed in vain.
At length two figures mounted the marble steps, leading
to the Tuscan colonnade, and were thus brought clearly
into view, above the crested casques of the soldiery.
One, a tall well-made figure, splendidly accoutred in the
cavalry armor of the day, he recognized at once for Arvina,
and in the stouter person, clad in the blue abolla,
the color of which he had already connected with one
whom he knew—his worst fears all realized—he discovered
the messenger of treason, Titus Volturcius of Crotona.
“By the Gods! all is lost,” he muttered, striking his
hand violently on his thigh. “Escape alone, is left to us.
Ha!” he continued, addressing his freedman, “I will arise,
and go forth speedily. Give me my tunic. So—never
mind the feminalia; there, clasp my sandals! Death and
furies! how slow thou art, now my dagger, and my toga.
Hark, now. I go to the house of Lentulus. See thou, and
have my chariot harnessed for a journey, with the four
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Thracian steeds; put into it my armor, a sword, casque and
buckler for thyself; and all the gold which is locked in the
great chest in the Atrium. Here is the key. Tarry not
for thy life, and bring the car thyself to the arch of Fabius
Allobrox; wait there until I come to thee. I will be there
within the hour.”
“It shall be done, Cæparius.”
“See that it be done, if thou wouldst scape the scourge!”
and with the word he rushed out of the chamber, as if the
avenger of blood were at his heels.
But the freedman looked after him, with a bitter and
scornful smile, and muttered—
“The scourge!—the scourge! and I a freedman! This
is another friend of the people. His villanies, I fancy, are
near upon detection, and he would fly to join Catiline, but
I will thwart him.”
In the meantime, quitting his own house in great trepidation,
the conspirator walked very rapidly through the
streets, until he reached the house of Lentulus, which was
not far distant from the forum.
He was admitted instantly, and without question, for all
the slaves knew him, as the intimate friend of their master;
but at the bed room door, he was stopped by the favorite
freedman of Lentulus, who urged that his lord had not retired
till morning, and had desired that he should not be
disturbed earlier than noon.
Cæparius, on the other hand insisted, raising his voice
so loudly that the sleeper was awakened, and recognizing
the accent of his friend, cried out peevishly—
“Oh! let him in, Agathon; let him in quickly, or he will
talk thee deaf, and me frantic! What in the name of Proserpine
and Pluto! is it now?”
“The plot is discovered! all is lost!” exclaimed the
other, forgetting all prudence in the haste and terror of the
moment.
“To the abyss of Tartarus with the plot, and thee also!”
replied the other savagely. “I hope it is discovered, for
I shall get some sleep then. I have had none these six
months.”
And turning on his other side, he drew the embroidered
coverlid over his head, and appeared to court the interrupted
slumber.
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“By all Gods! I tell thee, Lentulus, Volturcius is arrested.
These eyes beheld him dragged into the house of
Cicero. My chariot waits me now, at the arch of Fabius.
I go to join Catiline.”
“I prithee, then, go quickly—thou torturest me, man,
I say. Get thee gone! get thee gone! Better to die, than
to live thus sleepless.”
“Whom the Gods wish to ruin, they first dementate!”
exclaimed Cæparius—“thou wilt be seized, within the
hour”
“I care not So that till then I can sleep; once more, I
say—Begone!”
Cæparius shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head
as he left the room; and then made the best of his way to
the arch of Fabius; but he found not his chariot there, not
though he waited well nigh two hours, did it arrive at all.
Hopeless at length, and desperate, he set forth alone and
on foot, in the vain hope of escaping the pursuit of Cicero's
unerring justice.
Meanwhile, disturbed more than he would admit by Cæ
parius' tidings, Lentulus did, in some sort, arouse himself
to consideration.
“It may be so,” he said to himself. “Cæparius declared
he saw him. If it be so, 'twere better perhaps, indeed,
to leave the city. And yet,” he continued pondering
deeply, “to fly is to admit guilt, and it is too late,
moreover. Tush! tush! I daresay, it is but Cæparius'
terror—he was a fool always, and I believe a coward also.
Beside, if it be true, there is no proof; and what dare Cicero
against me—against me, a Consular of Rome?—At
the worst, he will implore me to deliver the city of my presence,
as he did Catiline. Ha! Ha! I will to sleep again.
Yet stay, I am athirst, after Sempronia's revel! Fool,
that I was, not to drink more last night, and quench this
fiery craving. Ho! Agathon, my boy, fetch me the great
goblet, the double[2] sextarius, of spiced mulse with a snow-water.”
This order was obeyed instantly, and after draining the
huge beaker to the bottom, the indolent and reckless
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traitor, rolled himself over, and was asleep again as soundly
in five minutes, as if he were not in truth slumbering upon
the brink of a volcano.
Not long however did he sleep in peace, for Cæparius
had scarcely been gone an hour, when he was again startled
from his doze, by a knocking so violent, at the outer
door, that the whole house reechoed with the din.
He heard the doors opened, and a short angry parle,
broken short by the raised voice of the new comers, and
the clanging of armed footsteps, along the marble corridor
which led toward his chamber.
A moment afterward, pale as death, with his hair starting
and a wild eye, Agathon entered the room.
“How now?” exclaimed Lentulus, who fully aroused
by this time, was sitting on the edge of the low bedstead,
with a purple gown cast carelessly around him, “what is
this new disturbance.”
“The Atrium is full of armed soldiers, Lentulus,” replied
the man with a faltering accent.
“Well! hast thou never seen a soldier before, that thou
starest so wildly?” asked his master with a sneer, which
even the extremity of danger could not restrain.
“Their leader insists on present speech with thee. I
told him that thou wert asleep; but he replied that, waking
or asleep, he must have speech with thee.”
“Truly a valiant leader,” answered the Prætor. “Hath
he a name, this bold centurion?”
“Paullus Cæcilius Arvina,” replied the young man, who
having followed the freedman to the door had overheard
all that was passing, “is my name—no centurion, as thou
mayest see, Lentulus. Loth am I to disturb thy slumbers.”
“Then wherefore do it, youth?” asked Lentulus, quickly.
“Most broken things may be repaired, but I know
not how you shall mend a broken nap, or recompense the
loss of it, if irreparable.”
“Not of my own will, but by the Consul's order.”
“The Consul's? What? Antonius? He scarce need
have sent a troop of horse, to ask an old friend to breakfast!”
“Cicero sent me, Prætor, to crave your instant presence
at his house, touching affairs of state.”
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“Ha! Cicero!” said he, affecting to be much surprised
“Cicero scarcely is on such terms with me, as to take such
a liberty, waking me thus at the dead of night.”
“It is well nigh the fourth hour, Lentulus.”
“What if it be, an I choose to call it midnight? and
what, if I refuse to obey such unceremonious bidding?”
“In that case, Lentulus, my orders are to compel your
attendance. I have two decuries of men in your Atrium.
But I trust that you will drive me to no such necessity.”
“Two decuries!” replied Lentulus scornfully. “I have
but to lift my little finger, and my freedmen and slaves
would kick your decuries, and yourself after them into the
velabrum.”
The blood mounted to the brow of the young soldier.
“I have endured,” he said, “something too much of this
Will you go with us peacefully, Lentulus, or will you force
us to take you through the street like a felon?”
“Oh! peacefully, Arvina, peacefully. I did but jest
with you, my hero. But I knew not that the cavalry of
the seventh legion—the legion of Mars I think they call it—
had become so degraded, as to do the work of thieftakers.”
“Nor I, Lentulus,” answered Paul. “But you should
know best in this matter. If it be theft for which thou art
summoned before Cicero, then are we indeed thieftakers.
But if so, not only I believe should we be the first legionaries
of Rome so employed, but thou the first Roman Consular
so guilty.”
“So proud! ha!” exclaimed the haughty conspirator,
gazing at him with a curled lip and flashing eye. “Well,
I could quell that pride in one moment, with one word.”
“Even so proud, because honest!” answered the young
man, as haughtily as the other. “For the rest, will you
clothe yourself at once?—I can wait babbling here no longer.”
“I will quell it. Look you, boy, you love Julia, the
bright daughter of Hortensia—she is worth loving, by the
way, and Catiline hath noted it. You fancy that she is safe
now, at the Latin villa of her mother. She is not safe—
nor at the Latin villa! I have touched you, have I not?”
Arvina started, as if a serpent had bitten him; but in a
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moment he recovered himself, saying calmly, “Tush! it is
a poor deceit! you cannot alarm me.”
“In truth it was a deceit, but not so very poor after all,
since it succeeded. You were sorely wounded a few days
since, Arvina, and wrote, I think, to Julia, requesting her
to set forth at once to Rome, with Hortensia.”
“Folly!” replied Arvina, “Drivelling folly! Come, hasten
your dressing, Lentulus! You need not perfume your
hair, and curl your beard, as if you were going to a banquet.”
“I never hasten anything, my Paullus. Things done
hastily, are rarely things done well. What? thou didst
not write such a letter?—I thought thou hadst—of this at
least I am sure, that she received such an one; and set out
for Rome, within an hour after.”
“By the Gods!” exclaimed Paullus, a little eagerly, for
Lentulus had changed the slight bantering tone in which
he had been speaking, for a quick short decided accent
seeming to denote that he was in earnest. “Where is she
now. Speak, Lentulus, I adjure thee. Tell me, if thou
wouldst have me serve thee!”
“I thought I could abate that pride somewhat,” said
Lentulus sneeringly. “I thought so indeed. But, by all
the Gods! Arvina, I know not where your Julia may be
now. I know whither they are conveying her—where she
soon will be—but I fancy that the knowing it, would give
you but little pleasure; unless, indeed, you could prevent
it, my poor youth!”
“To know, is something at least toward preventing it
If, therefore, thou art not, as I believe indeed thou art,
merely mocking me, I pray thee tell me, whither are they
conveying her? Where will she soon be?”
“To the camp of Manlius, nigh Fiesolè! In the arms
of one Lucius Sergius Catiline—a great admirer of your
auburn-haired, blue-eyed beauties, my Arvina.”
The young man, with his eyes gleaming and his face
crimsoning with furious rage, made two steps forward, and
seizing the burly traitor by the throat, compressed his gul
let, as if in an iron vice, and shook him to and fro as easily
as if he had been a stripling.
“Shame on thee, filth and carrion that thou art, so to
speak of a betrothed bride to her promised husband! It
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it were true, wretched villain! I would save the hangman
his task, and break your traitor's throat with this hand—
but thou liest! thou liest!” he shouted, pushing him to the
other end of the narrow sleeping chamber. “In poor revenge
thou liest! But if you wish to live, beware how you
so lie any more!”
“I do not lie indeed, my dear Arvina,” replied the other
in a bland fawning voice full of mock humility. “But, I
prithee, boy, keep thy hands from my throat in future, unless
thou wouldst desire to know how a crook-bladed sica
some sixteen inches long feels in the region of thy heart.
Such an one as this, Arvina,” he added, showing a long keen
weapon not unlike a Turkish yatagan in shape, which he
drew from beneath his pillow. Then casting it aside, with
a contemptuous gesture, he continued—“But this is mere
child's play. Now mark me. I did not lie, nor do! Aulus
Fulvius wrote the letter—Aulus Fulvius' slave carried
it, yester-even—Aulus Fulvius beset the road by which
they must come—Aulus Fulvius is ere this time on his
road many a league conveying her to Catiline—and this,”
he said, putting a small slip of parchment into the hands of
the astonished Paullus, “is Aulus Fulvius' handwriting.
Yes! certainly, that is his S in the word Salutem. He affects
ever the Greek sigma in his writing. He is a very
pretty penman, Aulus Fulvius!”
The strip of parchment bore these words:
“Whom I am you will know by the matter. The camp
in Etruria will receive the dove from the Latin villa. All
hath succeeded—health!”
“I found it on my desk, when I returned from supper
this morning. Aulus's slave brought it hither. He is
within, if thou wouldst speak him.
Arvina staggered back like a man who has received a
mortal stab, as he read those fatal words; and stared about
him with a wild and wandering eye.
It was a moment or two before he could find any speech,
and when he did speak at length, it was in tones so altered
and broken that his nearest friend would not have recognized
his voice.
“Wherefore”—he gasped—“Wherefore have you done
this to me.”
“For vengeance!” thundered the proud conspirator,
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casting his crimson-bordered toga over his laticlavian tunic.
“For vengeance, boy. Lead on—lead on to your con
sul.”
“In what have I wronged you?” cried Arvina, in a paroxysm
of almost unspeakable despair. “In what, that you
should take such infernal vengeance?”
“For Julia's love thou didst betray Catiline! betray us!
In Julia's infamy thou shalt be punished!”
“Anything! anything! anything but this—strike here,
strike here with that sica, thou didst unsheath but now.
Slay me, by inches if thou wilt—but spare her, oh! by
your mother's memory! oh! by your sister's honor! spare
her, and I will—”
“Lead on! To your consul!” exclaimed Lentulus
waving his hand proudly to the door. “I can but die—
the Gods be thanked for it! Thy life is bitterer than many
deaths already! I say, coward and fool, lead on! Where
is thy boasted pride? In the dust! at my feet! I trample,
I spit on it! once again to your consul!”
“And thou couldst save her!”
“By a word! At a hint from me Fulvius will set her
free.”
“But that word? but that hint?—”
“My lips shall never utter—my hand indite; unless—”
“Unless? unless what?—speak! speak, Lentulus. By
the Gods! By your head! By your life! speak.”
“Place me beyond the walls of Rome, with twenty of
my freedmen, armed and mounted—it can be done on the
instant; they are here; they are ready!—and Julia shall
be in thy bosom ere to-morrow's sun shall sink behind the
hills of Latium!”
“A Traitor to my country! Lentulus, never!”
“Tush! boy! think upon beautiful, soft, weeping, innocent
Julia rescued by thee from Catiline—from pollution—
think on her gratitude, her love, her kiss! Think on a
life, a whole long life, of rapture!—and then balance
against it one small foolish word—”
“Dishonor!” Arvina interrupted him fiercely.
“Aye! to which thou consignest Julia, whom thou lovest!
Kind Venus guard me from such lovers!”
“Dishonor never can come nigh her,” replied Arvina,
who had recovered his senses completely, and who, though
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unutterably wretched, was now as firm and as cold as marble.
“Death it may be, but not dishonor!”
“Be it so,” answered Lentulus. “We will leave her
the option of the two, but believe me, when dishonor is
pleasant, women rarely choose death in preference to it.
You have had your option too, my Arvina. But I, it seems,
can have none, but must wait upon your consul.”
“You have the same which you give Julia!” answered
Paullus, sternly. “There is your dagger, and your heart
here!” he added, laying his hand on the broad breast of
the infamous Patrician.
“True! count its pulses—cooler, I think, and more
regular than thine, Paullus. Tush! man! I know a hundred
wiser things and pleasanter than dying. But once
more, lead on! I will speak no word again till I speak to
the consul!”
And without farther words he strode to the door, followed
closely by the young soldier, resolute and determined to
perform his duty, let what might come of it! He passed
through his marble peristyles, looked with a cool eye on
his flowery parterres and sparkling fountains, nodded a
careless adieu to his slaves and freedmen, and entered the
Atrium where Arvina's troopers awaited him, wondering
and impatient at the long delay.
With a proud gesture he waved his hand toward the
door, and six of the number marched forward, three and
three, while the rest falling into regular array behind him,
escorted him with all respect, but with stern watchfulness,
along the Via Sacra to the Carinæ.
Quickly arriving at the Atrium of Cicero's house, which
was filled with his friends and clients all in arms, and with
many knights and patricians, whom he knew, but no one
of whom saluted or seemed to recognize him, he was admitted
into the Tablinum, or saloon, at the doors of which
six lictors were on guard with their fasces.
On entering this small but sumptuous chamber he found
assembled there already, Cethegus, Statilius, and Gabinius,
silent, with white lips, in an agony of terror worse than
death.
“Ha! my friends!” he exclaimed, with an unaltered
mien and voice, “We are met once again. But we seem
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not, by all the Gods! to be well pleased with the meeting.
Why so downcast, Cethegus?”
“Because on earth it is our last meeting,” he replied.
And it was clear to see that the boldest and fiercest, and
most furious of the band, while danger was afar, was the
most utterly appalled now, when fate appeared imminent
and certain.
“Why, then!” answered Lentulus, “we shall meet in
Hell, Cethegus.”
“By the Gods! jest not so foully—”
“Wherefore not, I prithee? If that this be our last
meeting, good faith! let it be a merry one! I know not, for
my part, what ails ye all.”
“Are you mad? or know you not that Volturcius is a
prisoner, and our letters in the hands of the consul? They
will kill us ere noon.”
“Then they must make haste, Caius. It is noon already.
But, cheer thee up, be not so much afraid, my brave Cethegus—
they dare not slay us.”
“Dare not?”
“For their own lives, they dare not!” But as he spoke,
raising his voice to its highest pitch, the curtains which
closed the other end of the Tablinum were suddenly drawn
back, and Cicero appeared, clad in his consular robes, and
with his ivory staff in his hand. Antonius his colleague
stood in the intercolumniation, with all the lictors at his
back, and many knights in their appropriate tunics, but
with military cloaks above them in place of the peaceful
toga, and with their swords girded by their sides.
“Prætor,” said Cicero in a dignified but serene voice,
with no show of taunting or of triumph over his fallen enemy.
“The Senate is assembled in the temple of Concord.
The Fathers wait but for your coming. Give me your hand
that I may conduct you thither.”
“My hand, consul? Not as a friend's, I trust,” said the
undaunted Traitor.
“As a magistrate's, Cornelius Lentulus,” replied Cicero
severely, “whose hand, even if guilty, may not be polluted
by an inferior's grasp.”
“As a magistrate's you have it, consul. We go?”
“To the shrine of Concord! Antonius, my noble colleague,
let us begone. Senators, follow us; escape you
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cannot, if you would; and I would spare you the disgrace
of chains.”
“We follow, Cicero,” answered Cethegus in a hollow
voice, and casting his eyes with a wild and haggard expression
on Gabinius, he added in a whisper, “to our
death!”
“Be it so!” replied the other. “One can but die once;
and if his time be come, as well now as hereafter. I fear
not death now, when I see it face to face. I think, I have
heard thee say the same.”
“He spoke,” answered Statilius, with a bitter and sarcastic
laugh, “of the death of others then. Would God,
he then had met his own! So should we now have been innocent
and fearless!”
“I at least, if not innocent, am fearless.”
And watched on every side by the knights, and followed
by the lictors, two behind each, the ringleaders of the plot,
all save Cæparius who had fled, and Catiline—who was in
open arms, an outlaw and proclaimed enemy of his country—
the ringleaders were led away to trial.
The fate of Rome hung on the firmness of their judges.
eaf146v2.n2[2] The latin Sextarius contained about 99-100 parts of an English
Pint.
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CHAPTER XI. THE YOUNG PATRICIAN.
[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]
Not always robes of state are worn,
Most nobly by the nobly born.
H. W. H.
The light of that eventful morning, which broke, pregnant
with ruin to the conspiracy, found Aulus Fulvius and
his band, still struggling among the rugged defiles which it
was necessary to traverse, in order to gain the Via Cassia
or western branch of the Great North Road.
It had been necessary to make a wide circuit, in order
to effect this, inasmuch as the Latin road, of which the Labican
way was a branch, left the city to the South-eastward,
nearly opposite to the Flaminian, or north road, so that the
two if prolonged would have met in the forum, and made
almost a right line.
Nor had this been their only difficulty, for they had been
compelled to avoid all the villages and scattered farm
houses, which lay on their route, in the fear that Julia's outcries
and resistance—for she frequently succeeded in removing
the bandage from her mouth—would awaken suspicion
and cause their arrest, while in the immediate vicinity
of Rome.
At one time, the party had been within a very few miles
of the city, passing over the Tiber, scarce five miles above
the Mulvian bridge, about an hour before the arrest of the
ambassadors; and it was from this point, that Aulus sent
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off his messenger to Lentulus, announcing his success,
thereby directly disobeying the commands of Catiline, who
had enjoined it on him almost with his last words, to communicate
this enterprise to none of his colleagues in guilt.
Crossing the Flaminian, or great northern road, they had
found a relay of fresh horses, stationed in a little grove,
of which by this time they stood greatly in need, and
striking across the country, at length reached the Cassian
road, near the little river Galera, just as the sun rose above
the eastern hills.
At this moment they had not actually effected above ten
miles of their journey, as reckoned from the gates of Rome
to the camp of Catiline, which was nearly two hundred
miles distant, though they had traversed nearly forty during
the night, in their wearisome but unavoidable circuit.
They were, however, admirably mounted on fresh horses,
and had procured a cisium, or light carriage for two
persons, not much unlike in form to a light gig, in which
they had placed the unhappy Julia, with a slight boy, the
son of Caius Crispus, as the driver.
By threats of the most atrocious nature, they had at
length succeeded in compelling her to temporary silence.
Death she had not only despised, but implored, even when
the point of their daggers were razing the skin of her soft
neck; and so terribly were they embarrassed and exasperated
by her persistence, that it is probable they would have
taken her life, had it not been for fear of Catiline, whose
orders were express to bring her to his camp alive and in
honor.
At length Aulus Fulvius had threatened in the plainest
language outrages so enormous, that the poor girl's spirit
sank, and that she took an oath, in order to avoid immediate
indignities, and those the most atrocious, to remain silent
during the next six hours.
Had she been able to possess herself of any weapon,
she would undoubtedly have destroyed herself, as the only
means she could imagine of escaping what to her was worse
than loss of life, the loss of honor; and it was chiefly in
the hope of effecting this ere nightfall, that she took the
oath prescribed to her, in terms of such tremendous sanctity,
that no Roman would dream of breaking it, on any
pretext of compulsion.
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Liberated by their success in this atrocious scheme, from
that apprehension, they now pushed forward rapidly, and
reached the station at Baccanæ, in a wooded gorge between
a range of low hills, and a clear lake, at about nine in the
morning, of our time, or the third hour by Roman computation.
Here they obtained a fresh horse for the vehicle which
carried Julia, and tarrying so long only as to swallow a
draught of wine, they pressed onward through a steep defile
along which the road wound among wooded crags toward
Sutrium.
At this place, which was a city of some note, they were
joined by forty or fifty partisans, well armed and mounted
on good horses, all veteran soldiers who had been settled
on the confiscated estates of his enemies by the great usurper
Sylla, and thenceforth feeling themselves strong enough
to overawe any opposition they might meet on the way,
they journeyed at a slower rate in perfect confidence of
success, numbering now not less than sixty well-equipped
Cavaliers.
Before noon, they were thirty miles distant from Rome,
and had reached the bottom of a long and almost precipitous
ascent where the road, scorning any divergence to the
right or left, scaled the abrupt heights of a craggy hill,
known at the present day as the Monte Soriano, the ancient
name of which has not descended to these times.
Scarcely however had they reached the first pitch of the
hill, in loose and straggling order, when the rearmost rider,
came spurring furiously to the head of the column, and
announced to Aulus Fulvius, that they were pursued by a
body of men, nearly equal to themselves in number, who
were coming up at a rate so rapid, as made it certain that
they would be overtaken, encumbered as they were with
the wheeled carriage conveying the hapless Julia.
A brief council was held, in which, firmly resisting the
proposal of the new-comers to murder their captive, and
disperse in small bodies among the hills, Aulus Fulvius
and Caius Crispus determined on dividing their men into
two parties. The first of these, commanded by the smith,
and consisting of two-thirds of their whole force, was destined
to press forward as rapidly as possible; while Fulvius,
with the second, should make a charge down hill
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upon the pursuers, by which it was hoped that they might
be so effectually checked and alarmed as to give up the
pursuit.
No time was lost in the execution, a second horse was
attached to the cisium, for they had many sumpter animals
along with them, and several spare chargers; and so much
speed did they make, that Crispus had reached the summit
of the ridge and commenced the descent before the pursuers
had come up with Fulvius and the rear.
There is a little hollow midway the ascent, which is
thickly set with evergreen oaks, and hollies, and in the centre
of this hollow, the road makes a turn almost at right
angles.
Behind the corner of the wood, which entirely concealed
them from any persons coming up the hill, Aulus drew up
his men in double lines, and as the band, whom he suspected
to be in pursuit of him, came into the open space, in
loose array, and with their horses blown and weary, he
charged upon them with a fierce shout, and threw them into
disorder in a moment.
Nothing could indicate more clearly, the utter recklessness
of the Catilinarian party, and the cheap estimate at
which they held human life, than the perfect unconcern
with which they set upon a party of men, whose identity
with those whom they feared was so entirely unproved.
Nothing, at the same time, could indicate more clearly,
the fury and uncalculating valor which had grown up
among them, nurtured by the strange policy of Catiline,
during a peace of eighteen years' duration.
Eighteen men, for, Aulus Fulvius included, they numbered
no more, set fiercely upon a force of nearly three
times their number, with no advantage of arms or accoutrement,
or even of discipline, for although all old
soldiers, these men had not, for years, been accustomed to
act together, nor were any of them personally acquainted
with the young leader, who for the first time commanded
them.
The one link which held them together, was welded out
of crime and desperation. Each man knew that his neighbor,
as well as himself, must win or die—there was no
compromise, no half-way measure that could by any possibility
preserve them.
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And therefore as one man they charged, as one man they
struck, and death followed every blow.
At their first onset, with horses comparatively fresh,
against the blown chargers and disordered mass of their
pursuers, they were entirely successful. Above a dozen
of their opponents went down horse and man, and the remainder
were driven scattering along the slope, nearly to
the foot of the declivity.
Uncertain as he had been at the first who were the men,
whom he thus recklessly attacked, Aulus Fulvius had not
well turned the angle of the wood, before he recognized
the faces of almost all the leading men of the opposite
party.
They were the oldest and most trusty of the clients of
his house; and half a dozen, at the least, of his own name
and kindred led them.
It needed not a moment therefore, to satisfy him that
they were in quest of himself, and of himself alone—that
they were no organized troop and invested with no state
authority, but merely a band suddenly collected from his
father's household, to bring him back in person from the
fatal road on which he had entered so fatally.
Well did he know the rigor of the old Roman law, as
regarded the paternal power, and well did he know, the
severity with which his father would execute it.
The terrors inspired by the thought of an avenging
country, would have been nothing—the bare idea of being
surrendered a fettered captive to his dread father's indignation,
maddened him.
Fiercely therefore, as he rushed out leading his ambushed
followers, the fury of his first charge was mere
boy's play when compared to the virulent and concentrated
rage with which he fought, after he had discovered fairly
against whom he was pitted.
Had his men shared his feeling, the pursuers must have
been utterly defeated and cut to pieces, without the possibility
of escape.
But while he recognized his personal enemies in the persons
he attacked, the men who followed him as quickly
perceived that those, whom they were cutting down, were
not regular soldiers, nor led by any Roman magistrate.
They almost doubted, therefore, as they charged,
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whether they were not in error; and when the horsemen of the
other faction were discomfitted and driven down the hill
on the instant, they felt no inclination to pursue or harass
them farther.
Not so, however, Aulus. He had observed in the
first onset, the features of a cousin, whom he hated; and
now, added to other motives, the fierce thirst for his kinsman's
blood, stirred his blood almost into frenzy. Knowing,
moreover, that he was himself the object of their pursuit,
he knew likewise that the pursuit would not be given
up for any casual check, but that to conquer, he must crush
them.
Precipitately, madly therefore he drove down the hill,
oversetting horseman after horseman, the greater part of
them unwounded—for the short Roman sword, however
efficient at close quarters and on foot, was a most ineffective
weapon for a cavalier—until he reached the bottom of
the hill.
There he reined up his charger for a moment, and looked
back, waving his hand and shouting loudly to bring on his
comrades to a second charge.
To his astonishment, however, he saw them collected in
a body at nearly a mile's distance, on the brow of the first
hill, beckoning him to come back, and evidently possessed
by no thought, less than that of risking their lives or liberty
by any fresh act of hostility.
In the mean time, the fugitives, who had now reached
the level ground and found themselves unpressed, began to
halt; and before Aulus Fulvius had well made up his mind
what to do, they had been rallied and reformed, and were
advancing slowly, with a firm and unbroken front, well
calculated to deter his handful, which had already been
diminished in strength, by one man killed, and four or five
more or less severely wounded, from rashly making any
fresh attack.
Alone and unsupported, nothing remained for him but
to retreat if possible, and make his way back to his people,
who, he felt well assured would again charge, if again
menaced with pursuit. To do this, however, had now
ceased to be an easy, perhaps to be a feasible matter.
Between himself and his own men, there were at least
ten of his father's clients; several of them indeed were
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wounded, and all had been overthrown in the shock either
by himself or his troopers; but they had all regained their
horses, and—apparently in consequence of some agreement
or tacit understanding with his comrades, were coming
down the hill at a gentle trot to rejoin their own party.
Now it was that Aulus began to regret having sent
forward the smith, and those of the conspirators to
whom he was individually known, with Julia in the van.
Since of the fellows who had followed him thus far, merely
because inferior will always follow superior daring, and
who now appeared mightily inclined to desert him, not
three were so much as acquainted with his name, and not
one had any intimacy with him, or indeed any community
of feeling unless it were the community of crime.
These things flashed upon Aulus in an instant; the
rather that he saw the hated cousin, whom he had passed
unnoticed in his headlong charge, quietly bringing the
clients into line between himself and his wavering associates.
He was in fact hemmed in on every side; he was alone,
and his horse, which he had taxed to the uttermost, was
wounded and failing fast.
His case was indeed desperate, for he could now see
that his own faction were drawing off already with the
evident intention of rejoining the bulk of the party, careless
of his fate, and glad to escape at so small a sacrifice.
Still, even in this extremity he had no thought of surrender—
indeed to him death and surrender were but two
names for one thing.
He looked to the right and to the left, if there were any
possibility of scaling the wooded slopes and so rejoining
the sturdy swordsmith without coming to blows again with
his father's household; but one glance told him that such
hopes were vain indeed. On either hand the crags rose
inaccessible even to the foot of man, unless he were a
practised mountaineer.
Then rose the untamed spirit of his race, the firm Roman
hardihood, deeming naught done while anything remains
to do, and holding all things feasible to the bold
heart and ready hand—the spirit which saved Rome when
Hannibal was thundering at her gates, which made her
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from a petty town the queen and mistress of the universe.
He gathered his reins firmly in his hand, and turning
his horse's head down the declivity put the beast to a slow
trot, as if he had resolved to force his way toward Rome;
but in a moment, when his manœuvre had, as he expected
caused the men in his rear to put their horses to their speed,
and thus to break their line, he again wheeled, and giving
his charger the spur with pitiless severity drove up the
steep declivity like a thunderbolt, and meeting his enemies
straggling along in succession, actually succeeded in cutting
down two, before he was envelopped, unhorsed and
disarmed, which, as his cousin's men came charging up
and down the road at once, it was inevitable that he must
be from the beginning.
“Curses upon thee! it is thou!” he said, grinding his
teeth and shaking his weaponless hand at his kinsman in
impotent malignity—“it is thou! Caius. Curses upon
thee! from my birth thou hast crossed me.”
“It were better thou hadst died, Aulus,” replied the
other solemnly, but in sorrow more than anger, “better
that thou hadst died, than been so led back to Rome.”
“Why didst thou not kill me then?” asked Aulus with
a sneer of sarcastic spite—“Why dost thou not kill me
now.”
“Thou art sacro sanctus!” answered the other, with an
expression of horror in his eyes—“doomed, set apart,
sanctified unto destruction—words, alas! henceforth avail
nothing. Bind him”—he continued, turning toward his
men—“Bind him, I say, hard, with his hands behind his
back, and his legs under his horse's belly! Go your way,”
he added, “Go to your bloody camp, and accursed leader”—
waving his hand as he spoke, to the veterans above, who
seemed half inclined to make an effort to rescue the prisoner.
“Go your way. We have no quarrel with you
now; we came for him, and having got him we return.”
“What?” cried the dark-eyed boy who had come up
too late to the Latin villa on the preceding night, and who,
strange to state, was riding with the clients of the Fulvian
house, unwearied—“What, will you not save her? will
you not do that for which alone I led ye hither? will you
be falsifiers of your word and dishonored?”
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“Alas!” answered Caius Fulvius, “it is impossible.—
We are outnumbered, my poor boy, and may not aid you,
as we would; but be of good cheer, this villain taken, they
will not dare to harm her.”
The youth shook his nead mournfully; but made no reply.
Aulus, however, who had heard all that was said, glared
savagely upon the boy, and after examining his features
minutely for a moment exclaimed—“I know thy face!
who art thou! quick thy name?”
“I have no name!” replied the other gloomily.
“That voice! I know thee!” he shouted, an expression
of infernal joy animating his features. “Thou miserable
fool, and driveller! and is it for this—for this, that thou
hast brought the bloodhounds on my track, to restore her
to him? Mark me, then, mark me, and see if I am not
avenged—her dishonor, her agony, her infamy are no less
certain than my death. Catiline, Catiline shall avenge me
upon her—upon him—upon thee—thou weaker, more variable
thing than—woman! Catiline! think'st thou he
will fail?”
“He hath failed ere now!” replied the boy proudly.
“Failed! when?” exclaimed Aulus, forgetting his own
situation in the excitement of the wordy contest.
“When he crossed me”—then turning once more to the
leader of the Fulvian clients, the dark-eyed boy said in a
calm determined voice, “You will not, therefore, aid me?”
“We cannot.”
“Enough! Look to him, then, that he escape you not.”
“Fear us not. But whither goest thou?”
“To rescue Julia. Tell thou to Arvina how these
things have fallen out, and whither they have led her; and,
above all, that one is on her traces who will die or save
her.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Aulus savagely in the glee of his
vengeful triumph. “Thou wilt die, but not save her. I
am avenged, already—avenged in Julia's ruin!”
“Wretch!” exclaimed his kinsman, indignant and disgusted—
“almost it shames me that my name is Fulvius!
Fearful, however, is the punishment that overhangs thee!
think on that, Aulus! and if shame fetter not thy tongue,
at least let terror freeze it.”
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“Terror? of whom? perhaps of thee, accursed?”
“Aulus. Thou hast—a father!”
At that word father, his eyes dropped instantly, their
haughty insolence abashed; his face turned deadly pale;
his tongue was frozen; he spoke no word again until at an
early hour of morning, they reached the house he had so
fatally dishonored.
Meanwhile, as the party, who had captured him, returned
slowly with their prisoner down the mountain side,
the last of the rebels having gallopped off long before to
join the swordsmith and his gang, the boy, who took so
deep an interest in Julia, dismounted from the white horse,
which had borne him for so many hours with unabated
fire and spirit, and leaving the high road, turned into a
glade among the holm oaks, watered by a small streamlet,
leading his courser by the rein.
Having reached a secluded spot, quite removed from
sight of the highway, he drew from a small wallet, which
was attached to the croupe, some pieces of coarse bread
and a skin of generous wine, of which he partook sparingly
himself, giving by far the larger portion to his four-footed
friend, who greedily devoured the cake saturated
with the rich grape-juice.
This done he fastened the beast to a tree so that he
could both graze and drink from the stream; and then
throwing himself down at length on the grass, he soon fell
into a heavy and quiet sleep.
It was already sunset, when he awoke, and the gray
hues of night were gathering fast over the landscape; but
he seemed to care nothing for the approaching darkness as
he arose reinvigorated and full of spirit, and walked up to
his horse which whinnied his joyful recognition, and tossed
his long thin mane with a spirited and fiery air, as he felt
the well-known hand clapping his high arched crest.
“Courage! brave horse,” he cried—“Courage, White
Ister. We will yet save her, for—Arvina!”
And, with the words he mounted, and cantered away
through the gloom of the woodland night, on the road toward
Bolsena, well assured of the route taken by Caius
Crispus and his infernal crew.
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CHAPTER XII THE ROMAN FATHER.
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Daughter, He fled.
That Flight was parricide.
Mason's Caractacus.
The streets of Rome were in fierce and terrible confusion
all that day long, on which the conspirators were arrested,
and all the night that followed it.
Late on the evening of that day, when it was already
dark, the Consul had addressed the people by torch-light
in the forum, delivering that superb speech, known as
the third oration against Catiline.
In it, he had informed them clearly of all the events
which had occurred in the last twenty-four days, since the
delivery of his second speech, more especially treating of
those which had taken place in the preceding day and
night.
The conspiracy made manifest by overwhelming evidence—
the arrest of the ambassadors, the seizure of the
letters, the acknowledgment of those letters for their own
by the terrified and bewildered traitors, and lastly the
committal of the ringleaders of the plot to close custody,
previous to the discussion of their fate—such were the
wondrous and exciting facts, which he had announced to
the assembled multitudes, inviting them to join him in a
solemn thanksgiving to the Gods, and public celebration,
decreed by the Senate to his honor; congratulating them
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on their escape from a danger so imminent and so general;
and calling on them, in conclusion, to watch over the safety
of the city by nocturnal guards and patroles, as they had
done so diligently during all that emergency.
The thundering acclamations, which greeted the close
of that luculent and powerful exposition, the zeal with
which the concourse hailed him unanimously Savior of
Rome and Father of his country, the eagerness of affection
with which all ranks and ages thronged around him, expressing
their gratitude and their devotion, by all means
imaginable, proved satisfactorily that, whatever might have
been the result had massacre, plunder, and conflagration
fallen upon them unawares, the vast mass of the people
were now loyal, and true to their country.
The seven hills never had resounded with louder din of
civic triumph, than they did on that glorious night; not
when the noble Scipio triumphed for Carthage overthrown;
not when the mighty Marius,[3] begirt with a host of captives
and all the pomp of war, dismounted, happiest of
men, from his Teutonic Car.
The streets were as light as day with the glare of lamps,
and torches, and bonfires blazing on all the circumjacent
heights, as with tremendous shouts, and unpremeditated
triumph, the mighty multitude escorted the great Consul
home, not to his own house, where the rites of the Good
Goddess were in celebration, and whither no male could
be admitted, but to his next-door neighbor's mansion, in
which he and his friends were entertained with more than
regal splendor.
What could have been more glorious, what more unmixed
with any touch of bitterness, or self reproach, than
Cicero's position on that evening?
His country saved from miseries unparalleled—saved by
himself alone—no aid of rival generals, no force of marshalled
hosts to detract from the greatness of his own achievement—
all the strife borne, all the success won, all the
glory conquered by the force of his own genius, of his own
Quid illo cive tulisset
Natura in terris quid Roma beatius unquam,
Si circumducto captivoum agmine, et omni
Bellorum pompa, animam exhalasset opimam,
Quum de Teutonico vellet descendere Curru.
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moral resolution. No blood of friends had been spilt to
buy that conquest, and wring its tribute of anguished sorrow
from eyes bright with the mixed excitement of regret
and triumph—no widow's tears, no orphan's sighs,
had mounted heavenward amid those joyous conclamations.
With no sword drawn, with no army arrayed, alone in
his peaceful toga, he had conquered the world's peace;
and, for that night at least, be enjoyed, as his great merit's
meed, a world's gratitude.
All night long had the streets been crowded with loud
and ardent throngs of all ages, sexes, ranks, conditions,
questioning, cheering, carolling, carousing—all, in appearance
at least, unanimous in joy; for none dared in such
an ebullition of patriotic feeling to display any disaffection.
And the morrow dawned upon Rome, still noisy, still
alive with tumultuous joy, still filled, through the whole
area within its walls, by thousands, and tens of thousands,
hoarse with shouting, weary almost of revelling, haggard
and pale from the excess of excitement.
Such was the scene, which the metropolis of the world
presented, when at the second hour of the morning, on the
day following the arrest of Lentulus, a small party consisting
of about fifty horsemen, conducting a prisoner, with
his arms bound behind his back, gagged, and with the lappet
of his cloak so disposed as to conceal his face, entered
the Quirinal gate, from the direction of the Flaminian
way.
They were the clients of the Fulvian House, leading the
miserable Aulus homeward, under the command of his
cousin. The horses were jaded, and bleeding from many
a spur gall; the men were covered with dust and sweat;
and several of their number were wounded; but, what at
once struck the minds of all who beheld them, was that
their faces, although stern and resolute, were grave, dejected
and sad, while still it would seem that they were returning
in triumph from some successful expedition.
At any other time, the entrance of such a party would
have awakened much astonishment and surprise, perhaps
might have created a tumult among the excitable and easily
agitated Romans; but now so strangely had the popular
mind been stimulated during the last days, that they either
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paid no attention to the train at all, or observed, pointing
to the prisoner, that there went another of the parricides.
Just. however, as the new-comers entered the gate,
another armed band met them, moving outward; the latter
being a full troop, thirty in number, of cavalry of the
seventh legion, with a banner, and clarion, and Paullus
Arvina at their head, in complete armor, above which he
wore a rich scarlet cloak, or paludamentum, floating over
his left shoulder.
The face of the young man was as pale as that of a
corpse, his eyes were sunken, and surrounded by dark circles,
his cheeks were hollow, and among the short black
curls, which were visible beneath the brazen peak of his
sculptured casque, there was one as white as snow.
Since the dread news had reached him of Julia's abduction,
he had not closed his eyes for a moment; and, although
scarcely eight and forty hours had elapsed, since
he received the fatal intelligence, he had grown older by
many years.
No one, who looked upon him, would have judged him
to be younger than thirty-five or forty years, when he was
in truth little more than half way on life's journey toward
the second period.
There was a cold firm determination too written on all
his features, such as is rarely seen in young men; and the
wild vacillating light which used to flicker so changefully
over his fine face, was lost in an expression of mournful
and despairing resolution.
Still his attitude on his charger's back was fine and spirited;
his head was proudly erect: and his voice, as from
time to time, he uttered some command to his troopers,
was clear, steady, and sonorous.
So much indeed was he altered, that Caius Fulvius, who
knew him well, gazed at him doubtfully for half a minute
ere he addressed him, as the two troops came almost into
contact, the mounted clients of the Fulvian House, withdrawing
to the wayside to allow the legionaries to pass.
Assured at last that it was indeed Arvina, he called out
as he passed—
“Tell me, I pray thee, Paullus, what means this concourse
in the streets? hath aught of ill befallen?”
“Ha! is it thou, Caius Fulvius?” replied Arvina. “I
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will speak with thee anon. Lead the men forward,” he
added, turning round in his saddle to the second Decurion
of his troop, “my good Drusus. I will overtake you, ere
you shall reach the Mulvian bridge.” Here wheeling his
horse to the side of the young nobleman, “Where hast
thou been, Caius, that thou hast not heard? All the conspirators
have been arrested. Lentulus, and Cethegus,
Gabinius, Statilius, and Cæparius! They have confessed
their letters—the Gaulish ambassadors, and Titus Volturcius
have given evidence against them. The senate is debating
even now on their doom.”
“Indeed! indeed! when did all this fall out?” enquired
the other evidently in great astonishment.
“Yesterday morning they were taken. The previous
night, in the third watch, the ambassadors were stopped on
the Mulvian bridge, and the treasonable papers found on
Volturcius.”
“Ha! this is indeed news!” cried Caius. “What will
befall Lentulus and the rest? Do men know anything!”
“Death!” answered Arvina gravely.
“Death! art thou certain? A Prætor, a consular of
Rome! and all the others Senators! Death! Paullus?”
“Death!” replied the other still more solemnly, than
before. “Yet methinks! that rather should be a boon, than
the fit penalty of such guilt! But where have you been,
that you are ignorant of all this, and whom have you
there?”
Caius Fulvius shook his head sorrowfully, and a deep
groan burst from the lips of the muffled man, a groan of
rage mingled with hate and terror.
“I will tell thee, Arvina,” said the young man, after a
moment's pause, during which Paullus had been gazing
with a singular, and even to himself incomprehensible, emotion
at the captive horseman. “We have been sent to
fetch him back,” and he pointed to his wretched cousin,
“as he fled to join Catiline. We overtook him nigh to
Volsinii.”
“Who—who—” exclaimed Arvina in a terrible hoarse
voice—“By all the Gods! who is he?—”
“Aulus—”
“Ha! villain! villain! He shall die by my hand!
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burst from Arvina's lips with a stified cry, and drawing his
sword as he spoke, he made toward him.
But Caius Fulvius, and several others of the clients
threw themselves into the way, and the former said quietly
but very firmly, “No—no, my Paullus, that must not be.
His life is devoted to a baser doom; nor must his blood be
shed by a hand so noble! But wherefore—Ha!” he exclaimed,
interrupting himself in mid speech. “Ha! Julia,
I remember—I remember—would to the Gods I could
have rescued her.”
For one second's space Paullus Arvina glared upon
the speaker, as if he would have stabbed him where he sat
on his horse motionless and unresisting; then, shaking his
head with an abrupt impatient motion as if to rid himself
of some fixed image or impression, he said,
“You are right, Caius. But tell me! by the Gods! was
she with him? saw you aught of her, as you took him?”
“She was in his power, my poor Paullus, as we were
told at Sutrium; but when we overtook him, he had sent
forward all his band but a small party, who fought so hard
and handled us so roughly, that, he once taken, we dared
not set on them again. But, be of good cheer, my Paullus.
There is a gallant youth on the track of them; the same
youth who went to save her at the Latin villa but arrived
too late; the same who brought us the tidings of yon villain's
flight, who led us in pursuit of them. He follows still, and
swears that he will save her! The Gods grant it?”
“A youth, ha! who is he?”
“I know not. He refused to tell us, still saying that he
was nameless. A slight slender black-eyed youth. Exceeding
dark-complexioned, but handsome withal. You
would have said, to look on him, he would lack strength
to ride an hour; yet, by the God of Faith! he was in the
saddle incessantly for nearly forty hours, and shewed less
weariness than our sturdiest men. Never saw I such fiery
will, and resolute endurance, in one so young and feeble.”
“Strange!” muttered Paullus—“strange! why came he
not to me?”
“He did go to your mansion, but found you not. You
were absent on state business—then came he to the father
of this demon, who sent us in pursuit, and we have, as I
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tell you, succeeded. May you do so likewise! He charged
me to say to you `there was one on her track who would
die to save her.”'
“'Tis passing strange! I may not even guess who it
should be,” he added musing, “the Gods give him strength.
But tell me, Caius, can I, by any speed, overtake them?”
“I fear me not, Paullus, ere they have reached the camp.
They were nigh to Volsinii at noon yesterday; of course
they will not loiter on the way.”
“Alas!” replied the unhappy youth. “Curses! curses!
ten thousand curses on his head!” and he glanced savagely
upon Aulus as he spoke—“to what doom do ye lead him?”
“To an indignant father's pitiless revenge!”
“May he perish ill!—may his unburied spirit wander
and wail forever upon the banks of Acheron, unpardoned
and despairing!”
And turning suddenly away, as if afraid to trust himself
longer in sight of his mortal enemy, he plunged his spurs
deep into his charger's flank, and gallopped away in order
to overtake his troop, with which he was proceeding to
join the army which Antonius the consul and Petreius his
lieutenant were collecting on the sea-coast of Errulla in
order to act against Catiline.
Meanwhil the others rode forward on their gloomy errand
toward the Fulvian House.
They reached its doors, and at the trampling of their
horses' feet, before any summons had been given, with a
brow dark as night and a cold determined eye, the aged
Senator came forth to meet his faithful clients.
At the first glance he cast upon the party, the old man
saw that they had succeeded; and a strange expression of
satisfaction mixed with agony crossed his stern face.
“It is well!” he said gravely. “Ye have preserved the
honor of my house. I give ye thanks, my friends. Well
have ye done your duty! It remains only that I do my
own. Bring in your prisoner, Caius, and ye, my friends,
leave us, I pray you, to our destiny.”
The young man to whom he addressed himself, leaped
down from his horse with one or two of the clients, and,
unbuckling the thong which fastened his cousin's legs under
the belly of the beast he rode, lifted him to the ground;
for in a sort of sullen spite, although unable to resist, he
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moved neither hand nor foot, more than a marble statue
would have done; and when he stood on the pavement, he
made no step toward the door, and it was necessary to carry
him bodily up the steps of the colonnade, and through
the vestibule into the atrium.
In that vast hall a fearful group was assembled. On a
large arm chair at the upper end sat an aged matron, perfectly
blind, with hair as white as snow, and a face furrowed
with wrinkles, the work of above a century. She was the
mother of the Senator, the grandmother of the young culprit.
At her right hand stood another large chair vacant,
the seat of the master of the house; and at her left sat another
lady, already far advanced in years, yet stately, firm,
and unflinching—the wretched, but proud mother. Behiend
her stood three girls of various ages, the youngest not
counting above sixteen years, all beautiful, and finely
made, but pale as death, with their superb dark eyes dilated
and their white lips mute with strange horror.
Lower down the hall toward the door, and not far re
moved from the altar of the household gods, near the impluvium,
stood a black wooden block, with a huge broad
axe lying on it, and a grim-visaged slave leaning against
the wall with folded arms in a sort of stoical indifference—
the butcher of the family. By his trade, he little cared
whether he practised it on beasts or men; and perhaps he
looked forward with some pleasurable feelings to the dealing
of a blow against one of the proud lords of Empire.
No one could look upon that mute and sad assemblage
without perceiving that some dread domestic tragedy was
in process; but how dreadful no one could conceive, who
was not thoroughly acquainted with the strange and tremendous
rigor of the old Roman Law.
The face of the mother was terribly convulsed, as she
heard the clanging hoof tramps at the door; and in an agony
of unendurable suspense she laid her hand upon her
heart, as if to still its wild throbbing.
Roman although she was, and trained from her childhood
upward in the strictest school of Stoicism, he, on
whom they were gathered there to sit in judgment, was still
her first-born, her only son; and she could not but remember
in this hour of wo the unutterable pleasure with which
she had listened to the first small cry of him, then so
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innocent and weak and gentle, who now so strong in manhood
and so fierce in sin, stood living on the verge of death.
But now as the clanging of the horse hoofs ceased, different
sounds succeeded; and in a moment the anxious
ears of the wife and mother could discern the footsteps of
the proud husband, and the fallen child.
They entered the hall, old Aulus Fulvius striding with
martial steps and a resolute yet solemn brow toward the
chair of judgment, like to some warlike Flamen about to
execute the wrath of the Gods upon his fated victim; the
son shuffling along, with downcast eyes and an irregular
pace, supported on one hand by his detested cousin, and
on the other by an aged freedman of the house.
The head of the younger Aulus was yet veiled with the
lappet of his gown; so that he had seen none of those who
were then assembled, none of the fatal apparatus of his
fore-ordered doom.
But now, as the old man took his seat, he made a movement
with his hand, and Caius, obedient to the gesture,
lifted the woollen covering from the son's brow, and released
his hold of his arm. At a second wafture, the
nephew and the freedman both departed, glad to be spared
the witnessing a scene so awful as that which was about to
ensue.
The sound of their departing footsteps fell with an icy
chill on the stout heart of the young conspirator; and although
he hated the man, who had just left the room, more
than any living being, he would yet willingly have detained
him at that crisis.
He felt that even hatred was less to be apprehended
than the cold hard decision of the impassive unrelenting
father, in whose heart every sentiment was dead but those
of justice and of rigorous honor.
“Aulus, lift up your eyes!”
And, for the first time since he had entered the hall, the
culprit looked up, and gazed with a wild and haggard eye
on the familiar objects which met his glance on every side;
and yet, familiar as they were, all seemed to be strange, altered,
and unusual.
The statues of his dead ancestors, as they stood, grim
and uncouth in their antique sculpture, between the pillars
of the wall, seemed to dilate in size, and become gigantic,
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to frown stern contempt on their degenerate descendant.
The grotesque forms of the Etruscan household Gods appeared
to gibber at him; the very flames upon the altar,
before them, cast lurid gleams and ominous to his distempered
fancy.
It was singular, that the last thing which he observed
was that, which would have been the first to attract the notice
of a stranger—the block, the axe, and the sullen headsman.
A quick shudder ran through every limb and artery of
his body, and he turned white and livid. His spirit was
utterly appalled and broken; his aspect was that of a sneaking
culprit, a mean craven.
“Aulus, lift up your eyes!”
And he did lift them, with a strong effort, to meet the
fixed and searching gaze of his father; but so cold, so penetrating
was that gaze, that his glance fell abashed, and he
trembled from head to foot, and came well nigh to falling
on the earth in his great terror.
“Aulus, art thou afraid to die?—thou, who hast sworn
so deeply to dye thine hands in my gore, in the gore of all
who loved their country? Art thou afraid to die, stabber,
adulterer, poisoner, ravisher, parricide, Catilinarian? Art
thou afraid to die? I should have thought, when thou
didst put on such resolves, thou wouldst have cast aside all
that is human! Once more, I say, art thou afraid to die?”
“To die!” he exclaimed in husky tones, which seemed
to stick in his parched throat—“to die! to be nothing!”
And again the convulsive shudder ran through his whole
frame.
But ere the Senator could open his lips to reply, the
blind old grandam asked, in a voice so clear and shrill that
its accents seemed to pierce the very souls of all who
heard it—
“Is he a coward, Aulus Fulvius? Is he a coward, too,
as well as a villain? The first of our race, is he a coward?”
“I fear it,” answered the old man gloomily. “But,
cowardly or brave, he must disgrace our house no farther.
His time is come! his fate cries out for him! Aulus must
die! happy to die without the taint of public and detected
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infamy—happy to die unseen in his father's house, not in
the base and sordid Tullianum.”
“Mother! mother!” exclaimed the wretched youth in
a paroxysm of agony. “Sisters, speak for me—plead for
me! I am young, oh, too young to die!”
“The mother, whom thou hast sworn to murder—the
sisters, whose virgin youth thou hast agreed to yield to the
licentious arms of thy foul confederates!” answered the old
man sternly; while the women, with blanched visages,
convulsed with agony, were silent, even to that appeal.
“Speak, speak! will you not speak for me, for your
first-born son, my mother?”
“Farewell!”—the cold word came forth from her pallid
lips, with a mighty effort—“Farewell, unhappy!” And,
unable to endure the dreadful scene any longer, she arose
from her seat, and laid her hand on the blind woman's
arm. “Come,” she said, “mother of my lord! our task is
ended! his doom spoken! Let us go hence!”
But the youngest sister, overcoming her fear of the stern
father, her modesty of youth, and her sense of high-strained
honor, cast herself at the old man's feet, and clung
about his knees, crying with a shrill painful cry—
“Oh, father! by your right hand! by your gray head!
by all the Gods! I implore you, pardon, spare him!”
“Up! up! base girl!” cried the old man; “wouldst
have the infamy of our house made public? and thou, most
miserable ooy, spare ner, thou, this disgrace, and me this
anguish—veil thy head! bow thee o the block! bid the
slave do his office! At least, Aulus, if thou hast not lived,
at least die, a Roman!”
The second of the girls, while her sister had made that
fruitless appeal to the father's mercy, walked steadily to
her brother, kissed his brow with a tearless eye, and in a
low voice bade him “Farewell for ever!” then turned
away, impassive as her father, and followed her mother
and the blind grandam from the fatal hall.
But the third daughter stepped up to the faltering youth
with a hectic flush on her cheek, and a fitful fire in her
eye, and whispered in his ear,
“Aulus, my brother! unhappy one, it is vain! Thou
must die, for our house's honor! Die, then, my brother,
as it becomes a Fulvius, bravely, and by a free hand!
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Which of our house perished ever by a base weapon, or a
slavish blow? Thou wert brave ever,—be brave now,
oh! my brother!”
And at her words, his courage, his pride, rallied to his
aid; and he met her eye with a flashing glance, and answered
in a firm tone, “I will, sister. I will die as becomes
a Roman, as becomes a Fulvius! But how shall I die by
a free hand, bound as I am, and weaponless?”
“Thus, brother,” she replied, drawing a short keen
knife from the bosom of her linen stola; and severing the
bonds which confined his elbows, she placed it in his hands.
“It is keen! it will not fail you! it is the last gift of the
last who loves you, Aulus!”
“The best gift! Farewell, sister!”
“Farewell, Aulus, for ever!” And she too kissed him
on the brow; and as she kissed him, a hot tear fell upon
his cheek. Then, turning toward her sister who was still
clinging to the old man's knees, embarrassing him with
useless prayers, so that he had observed none of that by-play,
she said to her firmly,
“Come, little girl, come! It is fruitless! Bid him farewell!
he is prepared to die! he cannot survive his honor!”
And she drew her away, screaming and struggling, with
eyes deluged in tears, from the apartment wherein the
Senator now stood face to face with his first born, the slave
alone present as a witness of the last struggle.
But Aulus had by this time recovered all the courage of
his race, all his own natural audacity; and waving his
hand with a proud gesture toward the slave, he exclaimed
in tones of severe authority:
“Dismiss that wretched slave, Aulus Fulvius. Ready
I am to die—nay! I wish not to live! But it becomes
not thee to doom me to such a death, nor me so to die!
Noble I am, and free; and by a free hand will I die, and
a noble weapon!”
There was so much command, so much high pride, and
spirit, in his tone, his expression, and his gesture, that an
answering chord was struck in the mind of the old man;
so that without reply, and without evincing any surprise at
seeing the youth's arms unbound, he waved a signal to the
slave to depart from the atrium
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Then the youth knelt down on one knee before the
altar, and cried aloud in a solemn voice—
“Pardon me, ye Gods of our house, for this dishonor
which I have brought upon you; absolve me, ye grand ancestors;
mine eyes are open now, and I perceive the sin,
the shame, the sorrow of my deeds! Absolve me, ye
great Gods, and ye glorious men; and thou, my father,
think sometimes of the son, whom it repented of his guilt,
but whom it pained not”—he raised his arm aloft, and the
bright knife-blade glittered in the rays of the altar-fire,
when the old Senator sprang forward, with all his features
working strangely, and cried “Hold!”
It might be that he had relented; but if it were so, it
was too late; for, finishing his interrupted sentence with
these words—
—“to die for his house's honor!”—
the young man struck himself one quick blow on the
breast, with a hand so sure and steady, that the knife
pierced through his ribs as if they had been paper, and
clove his heart asunder, standing fixed hilt-deep in his
chest; while, without word, or groan, or sigh or struggle,
he dropped flat on his back beside the impluvium, and was
dead in less time than it has taken to describe the deed.
The father looked on for a moment calmly; and then
said in a cool hard voice, “It is well! it is well! The
Gods be thanked! he died as a Roman should!”
Then he composed his limbs, and threw a white cloth
which lay nigh the block, over the face and body of the
wretched youth.
But, as he turned to leave the atrium, nature was too
strong for his philosophy, for his pride; and crying out,
“My son! my son! He was yet mine own son! mine
own Aulus!” and burying his face in his toga, he burst
into a paroxysm of loud grief, and threw himself at length
on the dead body: father and son victims alike to the inexorable
Roman honor!
eaf146v2.n3[3] Quid illo cive tulisset
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CHAPTER XIII. THE DOOM.
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Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not striving time allowed.
Hamlet.
The nones[4] of November were perilous indeed to
Rome.
The conspirators, arrested two days previously, and fully
convicted on the evidence of the Gaulish ambassadors, of
Titus Volturcius of Crotona, and of Lucius Tarquinius,—
convicted on the evidence of their own letters—and lastly
convicted by their own admissions, were yet uncondemned
and in free custody, as it was termed; under the charge of
certain senators and magistrates, whose zeal for the republic
was undoubted.
There was still in the city a considerable mass of men,
turbulent, disaffected, ripe for tumult—there was still in
the Senate a large party, not indeed favorable to the plot,
but far from being unfavorable to the plotters,—Catiline
was at the head of a power which had increased already to
nearly the force of two legions, and was in full march upon
Rome.
Should the least check of the armies sent against him
occur under such circumstances, there was but little doubt
that an eruption of the Gladiators, and a servile insurrection,
would liberate the traitors, and perhaps even crown
their frantic rashness with success.
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Such was the state of things, on the morning of the
nones; and the brow of the great Consul was dark, and
his heart heavy, as he entered the Senate, convened on this
occasion in the temple of Jupiter Stator, in order to take
the voice of that body on the fate of Lentulus and the rest.
But scarcely had he taken his seat, before a messenger
was introduced, breathless and pale, the herald of present
insurrection.
The freedmen and clients of Lentulus were in arms;
the gladiators and the slaves of Cethegus were up already,
and hurrying through the streets toward the house of
Quintus Cornificius, wherein their master was confined.
Many slaves of other houses, and no small number of
disaffected citizens had joined them; and the watches
were well nigh overpowered.
Ere long the roar of the mob might be heard even within
those hallowed precincts, booming up from the narrow
streets about the Forum, like the distant sound of a heavy
surf.
Another, and another messenger followed the first in
quick succession—one manipule of soldiers had been over-powered,
and driven into some houses where they defended
themselves, though hard set, with their missiles—the
multitude was thundering at the gates of the City Prisons;
and, if not quelled immediately, would shortly swell their
numbers by the accession of all the desperate criminals,
convicted slaves, and reckless debtors, who were crowded
together in those abodes of guilt and wretchedness.
Then was it seen, when the howls of the rabble were
echoing through the arches of the sanctuary wherein they
sate; when massacre and conflagration were imminent,
and close at hand; then was it seen, how much of real
majesty and power resided still in the Roman Senate.
Firm, as when Hannibal was thundering at their gates,
solemn as when the Gaul was ravaging their city, they sat,
and debated, grave, fearless, and unmoved.
Orders were issued to concentrate forces upon the spot
where the tumult was raging; the knights, who were collected
under arms, in the whole force of their order, without
the gates of the Temple as a guard to the Senate, were
informed that the Fathers were sufficiently defended by
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their own sanctity; and were requested to march down
upon the forum, and disperse the rioters.
The heavy tramp of their solid march instantly succeeded
the transmission of the order; and, in a short time after,
the deep swell of their charging shout rose high above
the discordant clamors of the mob, from the hollow of the
Velabrum.
Still, not a Senator left his seat, or changed countenance;
although it might be seen, by the fiery glances and clinched
hands of some among the younger nobles, that they would
have gladly joined the knights, in charging their hereditary
enemies, the Democratic rabble.
The question which was then debating was of more
weight, however, than any triumph over the mob; for by
the decision of that question it was to be determined whether
the traitors and the treason should be crushed simultaneously
and forever, or whether Rome itself should be
abandoned to the pleasure of the rebels.
That question was the life or death of Lentulus, Cethe
gus, Gabinius, Statilius, and Cæparius; all of whom were
in separate custody, the last having been brought in on
the previous evening, arrested on his way to the camp of
Catiline and Manlius.
Should the Senate decree their death, the commonwealth
might be deemed safe—should it absolve them, by that
weakness, the republic must be lost.
And on the turn of a die did that question seem to
hang.
Decius Junius Silanus, whose opinion was first asked,
spoke briefly, but strenuously and to the point, and as became
the Consul elect, soon to be the first magistrate of
that great empire. He declared for the capital punishment
of all those named above, and of four others, Lucius Cassius,
Publius Furius, Publius Umbrenus, and Quintus Annius,
if they should be thereafter apprehended.
Several others of the high Patrician family followed on
the same side; and no one had as yet ventured openly to
urge the impunity of the parricides, although Tiberius
Nero had recommended a delay in taking the question,
and the casting of the prisoners meanwhile into actual incarceration
under the safeguard of a military force.
But it had now come to the turn of Caius Julius Cæsar,
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the great leader then of the Democratic faction, the great
captain that was to be in after days, and the first Emperor
of subjugated Rome.
An orator second, if second, to Cicero alone, ardent, impassioned,
yet bland, clement, easy; liberal both of hand
and council; averse to Cicero from personal pique, as well
as from party opposition; an eager candidate for popular
applause and favor, it was most natural that he should take
side with the conspirators.
Still, his name having been coupled obscurely with their
infamous designs, although Cicero had positively refused
to suffer his accusation or impeachment, it required so
much boldness, so much audacity indeed, to enable him to
stand forward as their open champion, that many men disbelieved
that he would venture on a step so hazardous.
The greatest possible anxiety was manifested, therefore,
in the house, when that distinguished Senator arose, and
began in low, deep, harmonious tones, and words which
rolled forth like a gentle river in an easy and silvery flow.
“It were well,” he said, “Conscript Fathers, that all
men who debate on dubious matters, should be unbiassed
in opinion by hate or friendship, clemency or anger. When
passions intervene, the mind can rarely perceive truth;
nor hath at one time any man obeyed his interests and his
pleasures. The intellect there prevails, where most it is
exerted. If passion governs it, passion hath the sole sway;
reason is powerless. It were an easy task for me, Conscript
Fathers, to quote instances in which kings and nations,
impelled by enmity or pity, have taken unadvised
and evil counsels; but I prefer to cite those, wherein our
ancestors, defying the influence of passion, have acted well
and wisely. During the Macedonian war which we waged
against King Perseus, the state of Rhodes, splendid then
and stately, which had been built up by the aid and opulence
of Rome, proved faithless to us, and a foe. Yet,
when, the war being ended, debate was had concerning
her, our fathers suffered her citizens to go unpunished, in
order that no men might infer that Rome had gone to war
for greed, and not for just resentment. Again, in all the
Punic wars, although the Carthaginians repeatedly committed
outrages against them, in violation both of truce
and treaties, never once did they follow that example,
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considering rather what should seem worthy of themselves,
than what might be inflicted justly on their foes.
“This same consideration you should now take, Conscript
Fathers; having care that the crimes of Publius
Lentulus and his fellows weigh not upon your minds with
greater potency, than your own dignity and honor; and
that ye obey not rather the dictates of resentment, than the
teachings of your old renown. For if a punishment worthy
their crimes can be discovered, I approve of it, of how
new precedent soever; but if the enormity of their guilt
overtop the invention of all men, then, I shall vote that we
abide by the customs, prescribed by our laws and institutions.
“Many of those who have already spoken, have dilated
in glowing and set phrases on the perils which have menaced
the republic. They have descanted on the horrors
of warfare, on the woes which befall the vanquished. The
rape of virgins; the tearing of children from parental arms;
the ransacking of human homes and divine temples; the
subjecting of matrons to the brutal will of the conquerors;
havoc and conflagration, and all places filled with arms
and corpses, with massacre and misery—But, in the name
of the immortal Gods! to what do such orations tend?
Do they aim at inflaming your wrath against this conspiracy?
Vain, vain were such intent; for is it probable
that words will inflame the mind of any one, if such and
so atrocious facts have failed to inflame it? That is indeed
impossible! Nor hath any man, at any period, esteemed
his own injuries too lightly. Most persons, on the
contrary, hold them more heavy than they are. But consequences
fall not equally on all men, Conscript Fathers.
They who in lowly places pass their lives in obscurity,
escape the censure of the world, if they err on occasion
under the influences of passion. Their fortunes and their
fame are equal. They who, endowed with high commands,
live in exalted stations, perform every action of their lives
in the full gaze of all men. Thus to the greatest fortunes,
the smallest licence is conceded. The great man must in
no case consult his affections, or his anger. Least of all,
must he yield to passion. That which is styled wrath in
the lowly-born, becomes tyranny and cruel pride in the
high and noble.
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“I indeed think, with those who have preceded me, that
every torture is too small for their atrocity and crime. But
it is human nature's trick to remember always that which
occurs the last in order. Forgetful of the criminal's guilt,
the world dwells ever on the horror of his punishment, if
it lean never so little to the side of severity. Well sure am
I, that the speech of Decius Silanus, a brave and energetic
man, was dictated by his love for the republic—that in a
cause so weighty he is moved neither by favor nor resentment.
Yet his vote to my eyes appears, I say not cruel—
for what could be cruel, inflicted on such men?—but
foreign to the sense of our institutions. Now it is clear,
Silanus, that either fear of future peril, or indignation at
past wrong, impelled you to vote for an unprecedented
penalty! Of fear it is needless to speak farther; when
through the active energy of that most eminent man, our
consul, such forces are assembled under arms! concerning
the punishment of these men we must speak, however, as
the circumstances of the case require. We must admit
that in agony and wo death is no penalty, but rather the
repose from sorrow. Death alone is the refuge from every
mortal suffering—in death alone there is no place for joy
or grief. But if this be not so, wherefore, in the name of
the Gods! have ye not added also to your sentence, that
they be scourged before their execution? Is it, that the Porcian
law forbids? That cannot be—since other laws as
strenuously prohibit the infliction of capital punishment on
condemned citizens, enjoining that they be suffered to go
into exile. Is it, then, that to be scourged is more severe
and cruel than to be slain? Not so—for what can be too
severe or too cruel for men convicted of such crime. If
on the other hand it be less severe, how is it fitting to obey
that law in the lesser, which you set at naught in the
greater article? But, you will ask me perchance, who
will find fault with any punishment inflicted upon the parricides
of the republic? Time—future days—fortune,
whose caprice governs nations! True, these men merit
all that can befall them; but do ye, Conscript Fathers,
pause on the precedent which you establish against others?
Never did bad example arise but from a good precedent—
only when the reins of empire have fallen from wise
hands into ignorant or wicked guidance, that good
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example is perverted from grand and worthy to base and unworthy
ends. The men of Lacedemon, when they had
conquered Athens, set thirty tyrants at the helm who
should control the commonwealth. They at the first began
to take off the guiltiest individuals, wretches hated by all,
without form of trial. Thereat the people were rejoiced,
and cried out that their deaths were just and merited. Ere
long, when license had gained ground, they slew alike the
virtuous and the guilty, and governed all by terror. Thus
did that state, oppressed by slavery, rue bitterly its insane
mirth. Within our memory, when victorious Sylla commanded
Damasippus and his crew, who had grown up a
blight to the republic, to be put to the sword's edge, who
did not praise the deed? Who did not exclaim earnestly
that men, factious and infamous, who had torn the republic
by their tumults, were slain justly? And yet that deed
was the commencement of great havoc. For, when one
envied the city mansion or the country farm, nay, but the
plate or garment of another, he strove with all his energy
to have him on the lists of the proscription. Therefore,
they who exulted at the death of Damasippus were themselves,
ere long, dragged to execution; nor was there an
end put to the massacre, until Sylla had satiated all his
men with plunder. These things, indeed, I fear not under
Marcus Tullius, nor at this day; but in a mighty state there
are many and diverse dispositions. It may be at another
time, under another consul, who shall perhaps hold an
army at his back, that the wrong shall be taken for the
right. If it be so when—on this precedent, by this decree,
of this Senate—that consul shall have drawn the sword,
who will compel him to put it back into the scabbard, who
moderate his execution? Our ancestors, O Conscript Fathers,
never lacked either wisdom in design, or energy in action;
nor did their pride restrain them from copying those
institutions of their neighbors, which they deemed good
and wise. Their arms offensive and defensive they imitated
from the Samnites—most of the ensigns of their
magistracies they borrowed of the Tuscans. In a word,
whatsoever they observed good and fitting, among their
allies or their foes, they followed up with the greatest zeal
at home. They chose to imitate, rather than envy, what
was good. But in those days, after the fashion of the
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Greeks, they punished citizens with stripes; they took the
lives of condemned criminals. As the republic grew in
size, and party strife arose among its multitudinous citizens,
innocent persons were taken off under the pretext of
the law, and many wrongful deeds were committed with
impunity. Then was the Porcian Law enacted, with
others of like tenor, permitting convicts to depart into exile.
This I esteem, O Conscript Fathers, the first great
cause wherefore this novel penalty be not established as a
precedent. The wisdom and the valor of our ancestors
who from a small beginning created this vast empire, were
greater far than we, who scarcely can retain what they won
so nobly. Would I have, therefore, you will ask, these
men suffered to go at large, and so to augment the hosts of
Catiline? Far from it. But I shall vote thus, that their
property be confiscated, and they themselves detained
in perpetual fetters, in those municipalities of Italy which
are the wealthiest and the strongest. That the Senate
never again consider their case, or bring their cause before
the people—and that whosoever shall speak for them, be
pronounced, of the Senate, an enemy to his country, and to
the common good of all men.”
This specious and artful oration, in which, while affecting
to condemn what he dared not defend openly, he had
more than insinuated a doubt of the legality of sentencing
the traitors, was listened to by all present, with deep attention;
and by the secret partizans of the conspiracy with
joy and exultation. So sure did they esteem it that, in the
teeth of this insidious argument, the Senate would not venture
to inflict capital punishment on their friends, that they
evinced their approbation by loud cheers; while many of
the patrician party were shaken in their previous convictions;
and many of those who perceived the fallacy of his
sophistical reasoning, and detected his latent determination
to screen the parricides of the state, felt the hazard
and difficulty of proceeding as the exigencies of the case
required.
Cicero's brow grew dark; as Silanus avowed openly
that he had altered his opinion, and should vote for the motion
of Tiberius Nero, to defer judgment.
Then Cicero himself arose, and in the noblest perhaps
of all his orations, exerted himself strenuously to controvert
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the arguments and abolish the evil influence of the noble
demagogue.
He did not, indeed, openly urge the death of the traitors;
but he dwelt with tremendous force on the atrocious nature
of the crimes, and on the consequence of their success.
He showed the fallacy of Cæsar's insinuation, that
death was a less severe enactment than perpetual imprisonment.
He pointed out the impossibility and injustice of
compelling the municipalities to take charge of the prisoners—
the insecurity of those towns, as places of detention—
the almost entire certainty, that the men would ere long
be released, either by some popular tumult, or some party
measure; and he concluded with a forcible and earnest
peroration, appealing to the Senators, by their love of life,
of their families, of their country, to take counsel worthily
of themselves, and of their common mother; entreating
them to decree firmly, and promising that he would execute
their sentence, be it what it might, fearlessly.
As he sat down, the order was agitated like a sea in the
tumultuous calm, which succeeds to the wrath and riot created
by a succession of gales blowing from different quarters.
Murmurs of approbation and encouragement were
mixed with groans and loud evidences of displeasure.
The passions of the great concourse were aroused thoroughly,
and the debate waxed wild and stormy.
Senator arose after Senator, advocating some the death,
some the banishment, and some, emboldened by Cæsar's
remarks, even proposing the enlargement of the conspirators.
At length, when all arguments appeared to be exhausted,
and no hope left of anything like an unanimous decision
being adopted, Marcus Portius Cato arose from his seat,
stern, grave, composed, and awful from the severe integrity
of his grand character.
The turbulent assembly was calm in a moment. All
eyes were fixed on the harsh features of the stoic; all ears
hung rivetted in expectation, on his deep guttural intonations,
and short vigorous sentences. It was evident, almost
ere he began to speak, that his opinion would sway
the votes of the order.
“My mind is greatly different,” he said, “Conscript Fathers,
when I consider the perils of our case, and recall to
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my memory the speeches of some whom I have heard today.
Those Senators, it seems to me, have descanted on
the punishment of the men who have levied war against
their country and their parents, against their hearths and
their altars. But the facts of the case require not punishment
of their crimes, but defence from their assaults.—
Other crimes you may punish after their commission—unless
you prevent this from being done, when it is done,
vainly shall ye ask for judgment. The city stormed, nothing
remains to the vanquished. Now, in the name of the
immortal Gods! I call upon you, you who have always set
more store on your mansions, your farms, your statues and
your pictures, than on the interests of the state, if you desire
to retain these things, be they what they may, to which
you cling so lovingly, if you desire to give yourselves
leisure for your luxuries, arouse yourselves, now or never,
and take up the commonwealth! It is no question now of
taxes! No question of plundering our allies! The lives,
the liberties of every one of us, are hanging on your doubt
ful decision. Oftentimes, Conscript Fathers, have I spoken
at length in this assembly. Oftentimes have I inveighed
against the luxury and avarice of our citizens, and, therefore,
have I many men my enemies. I, who have never
pardoned my own soul even for any trivial error, could not
readily excuse in others the lusts which result in open criminality.
But, although you neglected those crimes as matters
of small moment, still the republic, by its stability and
opulence, sustained the weight cast on it by your negli-gence.
Now, however, we ask not whether we shall live,
corrupt or virtuous; we ask not how we shall render Rome
most great, and most magnificent; we ask this—whether
we ourselves, and with ourselves all that we possess whatsoever,
shall be yielded up to the enemy? Who here will
speak to me of clemency and pity? Long, long ago have
we cast away the true names of things; for now to be
lavish of the goods of others is termed liberality; audacity
in guilt is denominated valor. Into such extremity
has the republic fallen. Let Senators, therefore, since
such are their habitudes and morals, be liberal of the fortunes
of our allies, be merciful to the pilferers of the treasury;
but let them not be lavish in bestowing our blood
upon them! Let them not, in pity for a few scoundrels,
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send all good citizens to perdition. Caius Cæsar spoke a
while since, eloquently and in set terms, in this house, concerning
life and death; esteeming those things false, I
presume, which are believed by most men of a future
state that the wicked, I mean, journey on a different road
from the righteous, and inhabit places aloof from them,
dark horrid, waste, and fearful.
“He hath declared his intent, therefore, to vote for the
confiscation of their property; and the detention of themselves
in the borough towns in close custody. Fearing,
forsooth, that if they be kept in Rome, they may be rescued
forcibly, either by the confederates in their plot, or
by a hireling rabble. Just as if there were only rogues
and villains in this city, and none throughout all Italy.—
Just as if audacity cannot effect the greatest things there,
where the means of defence are the smallest. Wherefore
his plan is absurd, if he fear peril from these men. And if
he alone, in the midst of consternation so general, do not
fear, the more need is there that you and I do fear them.
Wherefore, when you vote on the fate of Publius Lentulus
and the rest, hold this assured, that you are voting also on
the fate of Catiline's army, on the fate of the whole conspiracy.
With the more energy you act, the more will
their courage fail them. If they shall see you falter but a
little, all at once they will fall on fiercely. Be far from believing
that our ancestors raised this republic from a small
state to a great empire, by dint of arms alone. Had it
been so, much greater should we have rendered it, who
have much greater force than they, of citizens and of allies,
of arms and of horses. But there were other things which
made them great, which we lack altogether. At home,
industry, abroad justice! A mind free to take counsel,
unbiassed by crime or passion. Instead of these things we
possess luxury and avarice. Public need, private opulence.
We praise wealth, and practice indolence. Between
righteous and guilty we make no distinction. Ambition
gains all the rewards of virtue. Nor is this strange,
when separately every one of you takes counsel for himself
alone. When at home, you are slaves to pleasure; here
in the Senate house, to bribery or favor. Thence it arises
that a general charge is made from all quarters against the
helpless commonwealth.
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“But this I will pass over.
“The noblest of our citizens have conspired to put the
torch to the republic. They have called to their aid, in
open war, the Gallic nation most hostile to the name of
Roman. The chief of your enemy is thundering above
your very heads; and are you hesitating even now what
you shall do with enemies taken within your very walls?—
Oh! you had better pity them, I think—the poor young men
have only erred a little, misled by ambition—you had
better send them away in arms! I swear that, should they
once take those arms, that clemency and mercifulness of
yours will be changed into wo and wailing. Forsooth, it
is a desperate crisis; and yet you fear it not. Yea, by the
Gods! but you do fear it vehemently. Yet, in your indolence
and feebleness of mind, waiting the one upon the
other, you hesitate, relying, I presume, on the protection
of the Immortals, who have so many times preserved this
republic in its greatest dangers. The aid of the Gods is
not gained by prayers or womanish supplication. To those
who watch, who act, who take counsel, wisely, all things
turn out successful. Yield yourselves up to idleness and
sloth, and in vain you shall implore the Gods—they are
irate and hostile.
“In the time of our forefathers, Titus Manlius Torquatus
during the Gallic war commanded his own son to be
slain, because he had fought against orders; and that illustrious
youth suffered the penalty of his immoderate valor.—
Do ye know this, and delay what ye shall decide against
the cruellest parricides? Is it forsooth that the lives of
these men are in their character repugnant to this guilt.—
Oh! spare the dignity of Lentulus, if he have ever spared his
own modesty, his own good report; if he have ever spared
any man or any God! Oh! pardon the youth of Cethegus,
if this be not the second time that he has waged war on his
country. For wherefore should I speak of Gabinius, Statilius
or Cæparius?—who if they ever felt any care for the republic,
would never have taken these councils. To conclude,
Conscript Fathers, if there were any space for a mistake, I
would leave you right willingly, by Hercules, to be corrected
by facts, since you will not be warned by words! But
we are hemmed in on all sides. Catiline with his army is
at our very throats—others of our foes are within our walls
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in the bosom of the state. Nothing can be prepared, nor
any counsel taken, so privately but they must know it.—
Wherefore I shall vote thus, seeing that the republic is
plunged into most fearful peril by the guilty plot of atrocious
citizens, seeing that these men are convicted on the
evidence of Titus Volturcius, and of the ambassadors of
the Allobroges, and seeing that they have confessed the intent
of murder, conflagration, and other foul and barbarous
crimes, against their fellow citizens and native country—I
shall vote, I say, that execution, according to the custom of
our ancestors, be done upon them having thus confessed,
as upon men manifestly convicted of capital treason.”
The stern voice ceased. The bitter irony, which had
stung so many souls to the quick, the cutting sarcasm,
which had demolished Cæsar's sophistry, the clear reasoning,
which had so manifestly found the heart of the mystery,
were silent. And, folding his narrow toga closely
about him, the severe patriot resumed his seat, he alone
unexcited and impassive.
But his words had done their work. The guilty were
smitten into silence; even the daring eloquence and high
heart of the ambitious Cæsar, were subdued and mute.—
The friends of their country were encouraged to shake off
their apathy.
With one voice, unanimous, the consulars of Rome cried
out for the question, applauding loudly the energy and
fearlessness of Cato, and accusing one another of timidity
and weakness.
A great majority of the Senate, likewise, exclaimed
aloud that they required no more words, but were prepared
to vote.
And convinced that the time had arrived for striking,
Cicero put it to the vote, according to the regular form, requiring
those who thought with Marcus Porcius Cato, to
pass over to the right of the curule chair.
The question was not in doubt a moment; for above
three-fourths of the whole body arose, as a single man,
and passed over to the right of the chair, and gathered
about the seat of Cato; while very few joined themselves
openly to Julius Cæsar, who sat, somewhat crest-fallen and
scarcely able to conceal his disappointment, immediately
on the left of the consul.
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Rallying, however, before the vote of the Senate had
been taken, the factious noble sprang to his feet and loudly
called upon the tribunes in general, and upon Lucius Bestia,
in particular, a private friend of Catiline, and understood
by all to be one of the conspirators, to interpose their
Veto.
That was too much, however, even for tribunician daring.
No answer was made from the benches of the popular
magistrates, for once awed into patriotic silence.
But a low sneering laugh ran through the crowded ranks
of the Patricians, and the vote was taken, now nearly unanimous;
for many men disgusted by that last step, who had
believed the measure to be unconstitutional, passed across
openly from Cæsar's side to that of Cato.
A decree of the Senate was framed forthwith, and committed
to writing by the persons appointed, in presence of
Marcus Porcius Cato and Decius Julius Silanus, as authorities
or witnesses of the act, empowering the consul to
see execution done upon the guilty, where and when it
should to him seem fitting.
Thus was it that Cicero and Cato for a while saved the
commonwealth, and checked the future Dictator in his first
efforts to subvert the liberties of Rome, happy for him and
for his country if it had been his last.
eaf146v2.n4[4] The fifth day of November.
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CHAPTER XIV. THE TULLIANUM.
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To be, or not be, that is the question.
Hamlet.
Night was at hand.
The Roman Senate might not sit after the sun had set.
Although the Tribunes had failed, in the consternation
of the moment, to respond to the call of Cæsar, there was
no doubt, that, if one night should intervene, those miscalled
magistrates would check the course of justice.
Confined, apart one from the other, in free custody, the
traitors had not failed to learn all that was passing, almost
ere it passed.
Their hopes had been high, when the rabble were alert
and thundering at the prison gates—nor when the charge
of the knights had beaten back the multitude, did they despair;
for simultaneously with those evil tidings, they
learned the effect of Cæsar's speech; and shortly afterward
the news reached them that Cicero's reply had found
few willing auditors.
Confined, apart one from the other, they had eaten and
drunken, and their hearts were “jocund and sublime”;
the eloquence of Cæsar, the turbulence of the tribunes,
were their predominant ideas. Confined, apart one from
the other, one thought was common to them all,—immediate
liberation, speedy vengeance.
And, in truth, immediate was the liberation; speedy the
vengeance.
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Night was at hand.
The Triumvirs, whose duty it was to superintend all
capital punishments—a thing almost unknown in Rome—
had been instructed to prepare whatever should be needful.
Lentulus sat alone in an inner chamber of the house of
Publius Lentulus Spintherus, an ædile at that time.
There was, it is true, a guard at the door, and clients under
arms in the atrium; but in his own apartment the proud
conspirator was still master of himself indeed, soon to be
master of Rome, in his own frantic fantasy.
Bright lights were burning in bronze candelabra; rich
wines were before him; his own favorite freedman leaned
on the back of his ivory arm chair, and jested lighly on the
discomfiture of noble Cicero, on the sure triumph of democratic
Cæsar.
“Fill up the glass again, my Phormio,” cried the exhilarated
parricide; “this namesake of my own hath good
wine, at the least—we may not taste it again shortly—fill
up, I say; and do not spare to brim your own. What if
our boys were beaten in the streets to-day. Brave Cæsar
was not beaten in the Senate.”
“By Hercules! no!” cried the wily Greek, base inheritor
of a superb name—“and if he had been checked,
there are the tribunes.”
“But he was not checked, Phormio?” asked the conspirator
in evident anxiety.
“By your head, no! You shall yet be the THIRD Cornelius!”—
“Who shall rule Rome!”—
The door of the small room was suddenly thrown open,
and the tall form of Cicero stood in the shadow of the entrance.
The gleam of the lamps fell full on his white robes,
and glittered on his ivory sceptre; but behind him it
showed the grim dark features of the Capital Triumvirs,
and flickered on the axe-heads of the lictors.
The glass fell from the hand of Lentulus, the wine untasted;
and so deep was the silence of that awful moment,
that the gurgling of the liquor as it trickled from the shattered
fragments of the crystal goblet, was distinctly audible.
There was a silent pause—no word, no motion followed
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the entrance of the Consul. Face to face, he stood with
the deadliest of his foes, Catiline absent. Face to face, he
stood with his overthrown and subdued enemy. And yet
on his broad tranquil brow there was no frown of hatred;
on his calm lip there there was no curl of gratified resentment,
of high triumph.
Raising his hand, with a slow but very solemn gesture,
he uttered in his deep harmonious accents, accents which
at that moment spoke in almost an unnatural cadence, this
one word—
“Come.”
And calm, and proud, as the Consul, the degraded Senator,
the fallen Consul replied, with a question,
“To death, Consul?”
“Come!”
“Give me my toga, Phormio.”
And robing himself, with an air as quiet and an expression
as unconcerned as if he had been setting forth to a
banquet, the proud Epicurean gazed with a calmer eye
upon the Consul, than that good man could fix upon his
victim.
“This signet to Sempronia—that sword to—no! no!—
this purse to thyself, Phormio! Consul, precede. I follow.”
And the step of the convicted Traitor, as he descended
from the portico of that mansion, for the last time, was
firmer, statelier, prouder, than that of his conductor.
The streets were thronged—the windows crowded—the
housetops heaped—with glaring mute spectators.
Some twenty knights, no more, unarmed, with the exception
of their swords, composed the Consul's escort.
Lentulus knew them, man by man, had drunk with them,
played with them, lent money to them, borrowed of them.
He looked upon them.
They were the handful leading him to death! What
made them break the ties which bound them to their brother
noble? What made them forget mutual pleasures enjoyed,
mutual perils incurred, mutual benefits accepted?
They were the nobles, true to their order.
He looked upon the thronged streets—upon the crowded
windows—upon the heaped housetops, he saw myriads,
myriads who had fed on his bounty, encouraged his
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infamy, hoped from his atrocity, urged him to his crime, myriads
who now frowned upon him—cursed him—howled at
him—or—more cowardly—were silent. Myriads, who
might have saved him, and did not.
Wherefore?
They were the people, false to their leader.
He looked from the handful to the myriad—and shook
himself, as a lion in his wrath; and stamped the dust from
his sandals.
Cicero saw the movement, and read its meaning. He
met the glance, not humiliated, but prouder for the mob's
reprobation; and said, what he would not have said had
the glance been conscious—
“Thou seest!—Hearest!”
“The voice of the People!” answered the traitor with
a bitter sneer.
“The voice of God!” replied the Consul, looking upward.
“That voice of God shall shout for joy at thy head on
the rostrum! Such is the fate of all who would serve
the people!”
The eloquent tongue, stabbed with the harlot's bodkin,
the head and the hand, nailed on the beaked column in
after days, showed which best knew the people, their savior,
or their parricide.
There is a place in Rome—there is a place—reader,
thou mayest have seen it—on the right hand as thou goest
up the steps of the Asylum ascending from the forum to
the capitol.
“There is a place,” wrote Sallust, some nineteen hundred
years ago—“There is a place, within the prison,
which is called Tullianum, after you have ascended a little
way to the left, about twelve feet underground. It is built
strongly with walls on every side, and arched above with
a stone vaulting. But its aspect is foul and terrible from
neglect, darkness, and stench.”
It is there now—thou mayest have seen it, reader. Men
call it the Mamertine Prison. It was then called Tullianum,
because it was so antique at that time, that vague tradition
only told of its origin long centuries before, built by
the fabulous King Tullius.
The Tullianum—The Mamertine Prison.
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The bath, which Jugurtha found very cold, when the
earrings had been torn from his bleeding ears, and, stript
of his last vestment, he was let down to die by the hangman's
noose.
The prison, in which, scarce one century later, Saint
Paul was held in durance, what time “Agrippa said unto
Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, had he
not appealed unto Cæsar.”
Unto Cæsar?
Cæsar the third Emperor, the third tyrant of the Roman
people.
Lentulus had appealed unto Cæsar, and was cast likewise
into the Tullianum.
The voice of the people, is the voice of God.
Whether of the twain slew Lentulus? whether of the
twain set free Paul, from the Tullianum?
In those days, there was a tall and massive structure
above that sordid and tremendous vault, on the right hand
as you go up towards the capitol.
The steps of the asylum were lined on either side by legionaries
in full armor; and as the Consul walked up
with his victim, side by side, each soldier faced about, and,
by a simple movement, doubling their files, occupied the
whole space of the steep ascent with a solid column; while
all the heights above, and the great capitol itself, bristled
with spears, and flashed with tawny light from the dense
ranks of brazen corslets.
The Capital Triumvirs received the Consul at the door;
and with his prisoner he passed inward.
It was in perfect keeping with the Roman character,
that a man, hopeless of success, should die without an effort;
and to the fullest, Lentulus acted out that character.
Impassive and unmoved, he went to his death. He disgraced
his evil life by no cowardice in death; by no fruitless
call upon the people for assistance, by no vain cry to
the nobles for mercy.
But it was the impassibility of the Epicurean, not of the
Stoic, that sustained him.
He went to die, like his brother democrats of France,
with the madness of Atheism in his heart, the mirth of Perdition
on his tongue.
They two, the Convict and the Consul, ascended a little,
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two or three steps, to the left, and entered a large apartment,
paved, walled, and roofed with stone; but in the
centre of the floor there was a small round aperture.
There were a dozen persons in that guard-room, four
of whom were his fellow-traitors—Gabinius, Statilius, Cæ
parius, and Cethegus—two prætors, four legionaries, and
two Moorish slaves composed the group, until with the
Triumvirs, and his twelve lictors, Cicero entered.
“Ha! my Cæparius!” exclaimed Lentulus, who had
not seen him since the morning of his arrest. “We have
met again. But I slept my sleep out. Thou might'st as
well have slept too; for we are both met here”—
“To die! to die! Great Gods! to die!” cried Cæparius
utterly overcome, and almost fainting with despair.
“Great Gods indeed!” replied Lentulus with his accustomed
half-sardonic, half-indolent sneer. “They must be
great, indeed, to let such a puppet as that,” and he pointed
to Cicero, as he spoke, “do as he will with us. To
die! to die! Tush—what is that but to sleep? to sleep
without the trouble of awaking, or the annoyance of to-morrow?
What sayest thou, my Cethegus?”
“That thou art a sluggard, a fool, and a coward; curses!
curses! curses upon thee!” And he made an effort
to rush against his comrade, as if to strike him; and, when
the guards seized him and dragged him back, he shook
his fist at Cicero, and gnashed his teeth, and howling out,
“Thou too! thou too shalt die proscribed, and thy country's
foe!” by a sudden effort cast off the men who held
him, and crying, “Slaves and dastards, see how a Roman
noble dies,” rushed, with his head down, at the solid wall,
as a buffalo rushes blindly against an elephant.
He fell as if he were dead, the blood gushing from eyes,
nose, and mouth, and lay senseless.
Lentulus thought he was killed, gazed on him for a moment
tranquilly, and then said with a quiet laugh—
“He was a fool always—a rash fool!” Then turning
to Cicero, he added—“By Hercules! this is slow work.
I am exceeding hungry, and somewhat dry; and, as I
fancy I shall eat nothing more to-day, nor drink, I would
fain go to sleep.”
“Would'st thou drink, Lentulus?” asked one of the
Triumvirs.
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“Would I not, had I wine?”
“Bring wine,” said the magistrate to one of the Moorish
slaves; who went out and returned in an instant with a
large brazen platter supporting several goblets.
Lentulus seized one quickly, and swallowed it at a
mouthful—there is a hot thirst in that last excitement—but
as the flavor reached his palate, when the roughness of the
harsh draught had passed away, he flung the cup down
scornfully and said,
“Finish it! Take this filthy taste from my lips! Let
me rest!”
And with the words, he advanced to the Moors who
stood beside the well-like aperture, and without a word
suffered them to place the rope under his arms, and lower
him into the pit.
Just as his head, however, was disappearing, he cast his
eyes upward, and met the earnest gaze of the Consul.
“The voice of the people! the man of the people!” he
cried sarcastically. “Fool! fool! they shall avenge me!
Think upon me near Formiæ!”
Was that spite, or a prophecy?
The eyes of the dying sometimes look far into futurity.
The haughty traitor was beyond the sight, before his
words had ceased to ring in the ears of the spectators.
There was a small low sound heard from below—not a
groan, not a struggle—but a rustle, a sob, a flutter—silence.
`So did[5] that Patrician, of the most noble house of the
Cornelii, who once held consular dominion in Rome, meet
his end, merited by his course of life, and his overt actions.
'
Cethegus perished senseless, half dead by his own deed.
Cæparius died sullen; Gabinius weak and almost fainting;
Statilius struggling and howling. All by a hard and
slavish death, strangled by the base noose of a foreign
hangman.
An hour afterward, their corpses were hurled down the
Gemonian Stairs, among the shouts and acclamations of the
drunken slavish rabble.
An hour afterward, Cicero stood on the rostrum, near
the Libonian well—that rostrum whereon, at a later day
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Lentulus' prophecy was fulfilled—and called out, in a
voice as solemn and almost as deep as thunder,
“They were!”
And the voice of the people yelled out its joy, because
they were no longer; and hailed their slayer the Savior
and Father of his country.
A few years afterward, how did they not hail Anthony?
eaf146v2.n5[5] Sallust.
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CHAPTER XV. THE CAMP IN THE APPENNINES.
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With that he gave his able horse the head.
Henry IV.
There is a wild gorge in the very summit of the Appennines,
not quite midway between Florence and Pistoia, the
waters of which, shed in different directions, flow on the
one hand tributaries to the Po, and on the other to the Arno,
swelling the Adriatic, and the Mediterranean seas.
The mountains rise abruptly in bare crags, covered here
and there by a low growth of myrtle and wild olives, on
either hand this gorge, quite inaccessible to any large array
of armed men, though capable of being traversed by solitary
foresters or shepherds. Below, the hills fall downward
in a succession of vast broken ridges, in places rocky
and almost perpendicular, in places swelling into rounded
knolls, feathered with dark rich forests of holm oak and
chesnut.
In the highest part of this gorge, where it spreads out
into a little plain, perched like the eyry of some ravenous
bird of prey, the camp of Catiline was pitched, on the second
evening after the execution of his comrades.
Selected with rare judgment, commanding all the lower
country, and the descent on one hand into the Val d'Arno
and thence to Rome, on the other into the plain of the Po
and thence into Cisalpine Gaul, the whole of which was
ripe for insurrection, that camp secured to him an advance
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upon the city, should his friends prove successful, or a retreat
into regions where he could raise new levies in case
of their failure.
A Roman camp was little less than a regular fortification,
being formed mostly in an oblong square, with a broad
ditch and earthen ramparts garnished by a stockade, with
wooden towers at the gates, one of which pierced each side
of the intrenchment.
And to such a degree of perfection and celerity had long
experience and the most rigid discipline brought the legions,
that it required an incredibly short time to prepare
such a camp for any number of men; a thing which never
was omitted to be done nightly even during the most arduous
marches and in the face of an enemy.
Catiline was too able and too old a soldier to neglect such
precaution under any circumstances; and assuredly he
would not have done so now, when the consul Antonius
lay with two veteran legions within twenty miles distance
in the low country east of Florence, while Quintus Metellus
Celer, at the head of a yet larger force, was in the Picene
district on his rear, and not so far off but he might
have attempted to strike a blow at him.
His camp, capable of containing two full legions, the
number of which he had completed, all free-born men and
Roman citizens, for he had refused the slaves who flocked
at first to his standard in great force, was perfectly defended,
and provided with all the usual tents and divisions; so
that every cohort, manipule, and century, nay every man,
knew his own station.
The sun had just sunk beneath the horizon and the night
watches had been set by sound of trumpets, the horsemen
had been appointed for the rounds, and an outpost of light-armed
soldiers pushed forward in front of all the gates.
There was a rosy tinge still lingering in the sky, and a
few slant rays were shot through the gaps in the mountain
ridge, gilding the evergreen foliage of the holm-oaks with
bright lustre, and warming the cold grey stones which
cumbered the sides and summits of the giant hills; but all
the level country at their feet was covered with deep purple
shadow.
Catiline sat alone in his prætorium, as the general's pavilion
was entitled, situated on a little knoll nearly in the
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centre of the camp between the tents of the tribunes, and
the quarters of the extraordinary horse.
He was completely armed, all but his head, and wore a
rich scarlet cloak above his panoply, his helmet and buckler
lying upon the ground beside him in easy reach of his
hand. A pen was in his fingers, and a sheet of parchment
was stretched on the board before him; but he was not
writing, although there were several lines scrawled on it
in a bold coarse hand.
His face was paler and more livid than usual, and his
frame thinner, almost indeed emaciated, yet every sinew
and muscle was hard as tempered steel.
But now there was a strange expression in his features;
it was not doubt nor hesitation, much less fear; and consisted
perhaps rather in the absence of his wonted characteristics,
the unquiet and quick changes, the passionate restlessness,
the fell deadly sneer, and the blighting flash of
the dark eye, than in any token of peculiar meaning.—
There was a cold and almost vacant expression in his gaze;
and an impassive calmness in all his lineaments, that were
in singular contrast with the character of the man; and he
sat, a thing most unusual for him, perfectly motionless, buried
in deep thought.
The night was very cold, and, without, a heavy hoar
frost was falling; so that a fire of charcoal had keen kindled
in a bronze brazier, and as the light of the sky died
away strange lurid gleams and fantastic shadows rose and
fell, upon the walls of the large tent, rendered more fickle
and grotesque by the wavering of the canvass in the gusty
night air. There was wine with several goblets upon the
board, at which he sat, with his eyes fixed straight before
him; and at his elbow there stood a tall brazen tripod supporting
a large lamp with several burners; but none of
these were lighted, and, but for the fitful glare of the char-coal,
the tent would have been completely dark.
Still he called not to any slave, nor appeared to observe
the growing obscurity, but sat gloomily pondering—on
what?
Once or twice he drew his hand across his eyes, and
then glared still more fixedly upon the dark and waving
shadows as if he saw something more than common in
their uncertain outlines.
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Suddenly he spoke, in a hoarse altered voice—“This is
strange,” he said, “very strange! Now, were I one of these
weak fools who believe in omens, I should shake. But
tush! tush! how should there be omens? for who should
send them? there must be Gods, to have omens! and that
is too absurd for credence! Gods! Gods!” he repeated
half dubiously—“Yet, if there should—ha! ha! art thou
turned dotard, Catiline? There are no Gods, or why sleep
their thunders? Aye! there it is again,” he added, gazing
on vacancy. “By my right hand! it is very strange! three
times last night, the first time when the watch was set, and
twice afterward I saw him! And three times again to-night,
since the trumpet was blown. Lentulus, with his
lips distorted, his face black and full of blood, his eyes
starting from their sockets, like a man strangled! and he
beckoned me with his pale hand! I saw him, yet so shadowy
and so transparent, that I might mark the waving of
the canvass through his figure!—But tush! tush! it is but
a trick of the fancy. I am worn out with this daily marching;
and the body's fatigue hath made the mind weak and
weary. And it is dull here too, no dice, no women, and
no revelling. I will take some wine,” he added, starting
up and quaffing two or three goblets' full in quick succession,
“my blood is thin and cold, and wants warming. Ha!
that is better—It is right old Setinian too; I marvel whence
Manlius had it.” Then he rose from his seat, and began
to stride about the room impatiently. After a moment or
two he dashed his hand fiercely against his brow, and cried
in a voice full of anguish and perturbation, “Tidings! tidings!
I would give half the world for tidings! Curses!
curses upon it! that I began this game at all, or had not
brave colleagues! It is time! can it be that their hearts
have failed them? that they have feared or delayed to
strike, or have been overthrown, detected?—Tidings, tidings!
By Hades! I must have tidings! What ho!” he exclaimed,
raising his voice to a higher pitch, “Ho, I say, ho!
Chærea!”
And from an outer compartment of the tent the Greek
freedman entered, bearing a lighted lamp in his hand.
“Chærea, summon Manlius hither, and leave the lamp,
have been long in the darkness!”
“Wert sleeping, Catiline?”
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“Sleeping!” exclaimed the traitor, with a savage cry,
hoarse as the roar of a wounded lion—“sleeping, thou
idiot! Do men sleep on volcanoes? Do men sleep in the
crisis of their fortunes? I have not slept these six nights.
Get thee gone! summon Manlius!” and then, as the freedman
left the room, he added; “perchance I shall sleep no
more until—I sleep for ever! I would I could sleep, and
not see those faces; they never troubled me till now. I
would I knew if that sleep is dreamless. If it were so—
perhaps, perhaps! but no! no! By all the Furies! no!
until my foot hath trodden on the neck of Cicero.”
As he spoke, Manlius entered the room, a tall dark sinister-looking
scar-seamed veteran, equipped in splendid armor,
of which the helmet alone was visible, so closely was
he wrapped against the cold in a huge shaggy watch-cloak.
As his subordinate appeared, every trace of the conflict
which had been in progress within him vanished, and his
brow became as impassive, his eye as hard and keen as its
wont.
“Welcome, my Caius,” he exclaimed. “Look you, we
have present need of council. The blow must be stricken
before this in Rome, or must have failed altogether. If it
have been stricken, we should be nearer Rome to profit by
it—if it have failed, we must destroy Antonius' army, before
Metellus join him. I doubt not he is marching hitherward
even now. Besides, we must, we must have tidings—
we must know all, and all truly!”
Then, seeing that Manlius doubted, “Look you,” he
continued. “Let us march at daybreak to-morrow upon
Fæsulæ, leaving Antonius in the plain on our right. Marching
along the crest of the hills, he cannot assail our flank.
We can outstrip him too, and reach Arretium ere the second
sunset. He, thinking we have surely tidings from
our friends in the city, will follow in disordered haste; and
should we have bad news, doubling upon him on a sudden
we may overpower him at one blow. It is a sure scheme
either way—think'st thou not so, good friend? nay more,
it is the only one.”
“I think so, Sergius,” he replied. “In very deed I think
so. Forage too is becoming scarce in the camp, and the
baggage horses are dying. The men are murmuring also
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for want of the pleasures, the carouses, and the women
of the cities. They will regain their spirits in an hour,
when they shall hear of the march upon Rome.”
“I prithee, let them hear it, then, my Caius; and that
presently. Give orders to the tribunes and centurions to
have the tents struck, and the baggage loaded in the first
hour of the last night-watch. We will advance at—ha!”
he exclaimed, interrupting himself suddenly, and listening
with eager attention. “There is a horse tramp crossing
from the gates. By the Gods! news from Rome! Tarry
with me, until we hear it.”
Within five minutes, Chærea re-entered the tent, introducing
a man dressed and armed as a light-horseman, covered
with mudstains, travelworn, bending with fatigue,
and shivering with cold, the hoar-frost hanging white upon
his eyebrows and beard.
“From Rome, good fellow?” Catiline inquired quickly.
“From Rome, Catiline!” replied the other, “bearing a
letter from the noble Lentulus.”
“Give—give it quick!” and with the word he snatched
the scroll from the man's hand, tore it violently open, and
read aloud as follows.
“Who I may be, you will learn from the bearer. All
things go bravely. The ambassadors have lost their suit,
but we have won ours. They return home to-morrow, by
the Flaminian way, one Titus of Crotona guiding them, who
shall explain to you our thoughts and hopes—but, of this
doubt not, thoughts shall be deeds, and hopes success, before
this hour to-morrow.”
“By all the Gods!” cried Catiline with a shout of joy.
“Ere this time all is won! Cicero, Cicero, I have triumphed,
and thou, mine enemy, art nothing;” then turning
to the messenger, he asked, “When didst leave Rome,
with these joyous tidings? when sawest the noble Lentulus?”
“On the fourth[6] day before the nones, at sunset.”
“And we are now in the sixth† before the Ides. Thou
hast loitered on the way, Sirrah.”
“I was compelled to quit my road, Catiline, and to lie
hid four days among the hills to avoid a troop of horse
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which pursued me, seeing that I was armed; an advanced
guard, I think, of Antonius' army.”
“Thou didst well. Get thee gone, and bid them supply
thy wants. Eat, drink, and sleep—we march upon Rome
at day-break to-morrow.”
The man left the apartment, and looking to Manlius
with a flushed cheek and exulting aspect, Catiline exclaimed.
“Murmuring for pleasure, and for women, are they?
Tell them, good friend, they shall have all the gold of
Rome for their pleasure, and all its patrician dames for
their women. Stir up their souls, my Manlius, kindle their
blood with it matters not what fire! See to it, my good
comrade, I am aweary, and will lay me down, I can sleep
after these good tidings.”
But it was not destined that he should sleep so soon.
He had thrown himself again into a chair, and filled
himself a brimming goblet of the rich wine, when he repeated
to himself in a half musing tone—
“Murmuring for their women? ha!—By Venus! I cannot
blame the knaves. It is dull work enough without the
darlings. By Hercules! I would Aurelia were here; or
that jade Lucia! Pestilent handsome was she, and then
so furious and so fiery! By the Gods! were she here, I
would bestow one caress on her at the least, before she died,
as die she shall, in torture by my hand! Curses on her, she
has thwarted, defied, foiled me! By every fiend and Fury!
ill shall she perish, were she ten times my daughter!”
Again there was a bustle without the entrance of the
pavilion, and again Chærea introduced a messenger.
It was Niger, one of the swordsmith's men. Catiline
recognized him in an instant.
“Ha! Niger, my good lad, from Caius Crispus, ha?”—
“From Caius Crispus, praying succor, and that swift,
lest it be too late.”
“Succor against whom? succor where, and wherefore?”
“Against a century of Antonius' foot. They came
upon us unawares, killed forty of our men, and drove the
stout smith for shelter into a ruined watch-tower, on the
hill above the cataract, near to Usella, which happily afforded
him a shelter. They have besieged us there these
two days; but cannot storm us until our arrows fail, or
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they bring up engines. But our food is finished, and our
wine wakes low, and Julia”—
“Who? Julia?” shouted Catiline, scarce able to believe
his ears, and springing from his chair in rapturous agitation—
“By your life! speak! what Julia?”—
“Hortensia's daughter, whom”—
“Enough! enough! Chærea”—he scrawled a few words
on a strip of parchment—“this to Terentius the captain
of my guard. Three hundred select horsemen to be in
arms and mounted within half an hour. Let them take
torches, and a guide for Usella. Saddle the black horse
Erebus. Get me some food and a watch-cloak. Get thee
away. Now tell me all, good fellow.”
The man stated rapidly, but circumstantially, all that
he knew of the occurrences of Julia's seizure, of the capture
of Aulus, and of their journey; and then, his eyes
gleaming with the fierce blaze of excited passion and triumphant
hatred, Catiline cross-questioned him concerning
the unhappy girl. Had she been brought thus far safely
and with unblemished honor? Had she suffered from
hunger or fatigue? Had her beauty been impaired by
privation?
And, having received satisfactory replies to all his
queries, he gave himself up to transports of exultation,
such as his own most confidential freedman never before
had witnessed.
Dismissing the messenger, he strode to and fro the hut,
tossing his arms aloft and bursting into paroxysms of fierce
laughter.
“Ha! ha! too much!—it is too much for one night!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! Love, hatred, passion, triumph, rage,
revenge, ambition, all, all gratified! Ha! ha! Soft, gentle
Julia—proud, virtuous one that did despise me, thou shalt
writhe for it—from thy soul shalt thou bleed for it! Ha!
ha! Arvina—liar! fool! perjurer! but this will wring
thee worse than Ixion's wheel, or whips of scorpions!—
Ha! ha! Cicero! Cicero!—No! no! Chærea. There are
no Gods! no Gods who guard the innocent! no Gods
who smile on virtue! no gods! I say, no Gods! no Gods,
Chærea!”—
But, as he spoke, there burst close over head an
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appaling crash of thunder, accompanied by a flash of lightning so
vivid and pervading that the whole tent seemed to be on
fire. The terrified Greek fell to the earth, stunned and
dazzled; but the audacious and insane blasphemer, tossing
his arms and lifting his front proudly, exclaimed with
his cynical sneer, “If ye be Gods! strike! strike! I defy
your vain noise! your harmless thunder!”
For ten minutes or more, blaze succeeded blaze, and
crash followed crash, with such tremendous rapidity, that
the whole heavens, nay, the whole atmosphere, appeared
incandescent with white, sulphureous, omnipresent fire;
and that the roar of the volleyed thunder was continuous
and incessant.
Still the fierce traitor blenched not. Crime and success
had maddened him. His heart was hardened, his head
frenzied, to his own destruction.
But the winter storm in the mountains was as brief as
it was sudden, and tremendous; and it ceased as abruptly
as it broke out unexpectedly. A tempest of hail came
pelting down, the grape-shot as it were of that heavenly
artillery, scourging the earth with furious force during ten
minutes more; and then the night was as serene and tranquil
as it had been before that elemental uproar.
As the last flash of lightning flickered faintly away, and
the last thunder roll died out in the sky, Catiline stirred the
freedman with his foot.
“Get up, thou coward fool. Did I not tell thee that
there are no Gods? lo! you now! for what should they
have roused this trumpery pother, if not to strike me?
Tush, man, I say, get up!”
“Is it thou, Sergius Catiline?” asked the Greek, scarce
daring to raise his head from the ground. “Did not the
bolt annihilate thee? art thou not indeed dead?”—
“Judge if I be dead, fool, by this, and this, and this!”—
And, with each word, he kicked and trampled on the
grovelling wretch with such savage violence and fury, that
he bellowed and howled for mercy, and was scarce able
to creep out of the apartment, when he ceased stamping
upon him, and ordered him to begone speedily and bring
his charger.
Ere many minutes had elapsed, the traitor was on horse-back.
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And issuing from the gates of his camp into the calm
and starry night, he drove, with his escort at his heels,
with the impetuosity and din of a whirlwind, waking the
mountain echoes by the clang of the thundering hoofs, and
the clash of the brazen armor and steel scabbards, down
the steep defile toward Usella.
eaf146v2.n6[6] The second of December.
eaf146v2.dag1† The eighth of December.
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CHAPTER XVI. THE WATCHTOWER OF USELLA.
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Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn.
Macbeth.
The watchtower in which Caius Crispus and his gang
had taken refuge from the legionaries, was one of those
small isolated structures, many of which had been perched
in the olden time on the summits of the jutting crags, or in
the passes of the Appennines, but most of which had fallen
long before into utter ruin.
Some had been destroyed in the border wars of the innumerable
petty tribes, which, ere the Romans became
masters of the peninsula, divided among themselves that
portion of Italy, and held it in continual turmoil with their
incessant wars and forays.
Some had mouldered away, by the slow hand of ruthless
time; and yet more had been pulled down for the sake of
their materials, which now filled a more useful if less glorious
station, in the enclosures of tilled fields, and the walls
of rustic dwellings.
From such a fate the watchtower of Usella had been
saved by several accidents. Its natural and artificial
strength had prevented its sack or storm during the earlier
period of its existence—the difficulty of approaching it had
saved its solid masonry from the cupidity of the rural proprietors—
and, yet more, its formidable situation, commanding
one of the great hill passes into Cisalpine Gaul,
had induced the Roman government to retain it in use, as
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a fortified post, so long as their Gallic neighbors were half
subdued only, and capable of giving them trouble by their
tumultuous incursions.
Although it had consisted, therefore, in the first instance,
of little more than a rude circular tower of that architecture
called Cyclopean, additions had been made to it by
the Romans of a strong brick wall with a parapet, enclosing
a space of about a hundred feet in diameter, accessible
only by a single gateway, with a steep and narrow path
leading to it, and thoroughly commanded by the tower itself.
In front, this wall was founded on a rough craggy bank
of some thirty feet in height, rising from the main road
traversing the defile, by which alone it could be approached;
for, on the right and left, the rocks had been scarped
artificially; and, in the rear, there was a natural gorge
through which a narrow but impetuous torrent raved, between
precipices a hundred feet in depth, although an
arch of twenty foot span would have crossed the ravine with
ease.
Against the wall at this point, on the inner side, the Romans
had constructed a small barrack with three apartments,
each of which had a narrow window overlooking
the bed of the torrent, no danger being apprehended from
that quarter.
Such was the place into which Crispus had retreated,
under the guidance of one of the Etruscan conspirators,
after the attack of the Roman infantry; and, having succeeded
in reaching it by aid of their horses half an hour
before their pursuers came up, they had contrived to barricade
the gateway solidly with some felled pine trees;
and had even managed to bring in with them a yoke of
oxen and a mule laden with wine, which they had seized
from the peasants in the street of the little village of Usella,
as they gallopped through it, goading their blown and
weary animals to the top of their speed.
It was singularly characteristic of the brutal pertinacity,
and perhaps of the sagacity also, of Caius Crispus, that
nothing could induce him to release the miserable Julia,
who was but an incumbrance to their flight, and a hindrance
to their defence.
To all her entreaties, and promises of safety from his
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captors, and reward from her friends, if he would release
her, he had replied only with a sneer; saying that he would
ensure his own safety at an obolus' fee, and that, for his
reward, he would trust noble Catiline.
“For the rest,” he added, “imagine not that you shall
escape, to rejoice the heart of that slave Arvina. No! minion,
no! We will fight 'till our flesh be hacked from our
bones, ere they shall make their way in hither; and if they
do so, they shall find thee—dead and dishonored! Pray,
therefore, if thou be wise, for our success.”
Such might in part indeed have been his reasoning; for
he was cruel and licentious, as well as reckless and audacious;
but it is probable that, knowing himself to be in
the vicinity of Catiline's army, he calculated on finding
some method of conveying to him information of the prize
that lay within his grasp, and so of securing both rescue
and reward.
If he had not, however, in the first instance thought of
this, it was not long ere it occurred to him; when he at
once proceeded to put it into execution.
Within half an hour of the entrance of the little party
into this semi-ruinous strong-hold, the legionary foot came
up, about a hundred and fifty men in number, but without
scaling ladders, artillery, or engines.
Elated by their success, however, they immediately
formed what was called the tortoise, by raising their shields
and overlapping the edges of them above their heads, in
such a manner as to make a complete penthouse, which
might defend them from the missiles of the besieged; and,
under cover of this, they rushed forward dauntlessly, to
cut down the palisade with their hooks and axes.
In this they would have probably succeeded, for the arrows
and ordinary missiles of the defenders rebounded and
rolled down innocuous from the tough brass-bound bull-hides;
and the rebels were already well nigh in despair,
when Caius Crispus, who had been playing his part gallantly
at the barricade, and had stabbed two or three of
the legionaries with his pilum, in hand to hand encounter,
through the apertures of the grating, rushed up to the battlements,
covered with blood and dust, and shouting—
“Ho! by Hercules! this will never do, friends. Give
me yon crow-bar—So! take levers, all of you, and axes!
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We must roll down the coping on their heads,”—applied
his own skill and vast personal strength to the task. In an
instant the levers were fixed, and grasping his crow-bar
with gigantic energy, he set up his favorite chaunt, as
cheerily as he had done of old in his smithy on the Sacred
Way—
“Ply, ply, my boys, now ply the lever!
Heave at it, heave at it, all! Together!
Great Mars, the war God, watches ye laboring
Joyously. Joyous watches”—
But his words were cut short by a thundering crash; for,
animated by his untamed spirit, his fellows had heaved
with such a will at the long line of freestone coping, that,
after tottering for a few seconds, and reeling to and fro, it
all rushed down with the speed and havoc of an avalanche,
drowning all human sounds with the exception of one
piercing yell of anguish, which rose clear above the confused
roar and clatter.
“Ho! by the Thunderer! we have smashed them beneath
their tortoise, like an egg in its shell! Now ply
your bows, brave boys! now hurl your javelins! Well
shot! well shot indeed, my Niger! You hit that high-crested
centurion full in the mouth, as he called on them
to rally, and nailed his tongue to his jaws. Give me another
pilum, Rufus! This,” he continued, as he poised and
launched it hurtling through the air, “This to the ensignbearer!”
And, scarce was the word said, ere the ponderous
missile alighted on his extended shield, pierced its
tough fourfold bull-hide, as if it had been a sheet of parchment;
drove through his bronze cuirass, and hurled him
to the ground, slain outright in an instant. “Ha! they
have got enough of it! Shout, boys! Victoria! Victoria!”
And the wild cheering of the rebels pealed high above
the roar of the torrent, striking dismay into the soul of the
wretched Julia.
But, although the rebels had thus far succeeded, and
the legionaries had fallen back, bearing their dead and
wounded with them, the success was by no means absolute
or final; and this no man knew better than the sword-smith.
He watched the soldiers eagerly, as they drew off in
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orderly array into the hollow way, and after a short consultation,
posting themselves directly in front of the gate with
sentinels thrown out in all directions, lighted a large watch
fire in the road, with the intention, evidently, of converting
the storm into a blockade.
A few moments afterward, he saw a soldier mount the
horse of the slain centurion, and gallop down the hill in
the direction of Antonius' army, which was well known to
be lying to the south-eastward. Still a few minutes later
a small party was sent down into the village, and returned
bringing provisions, which the men almost immediately
began to cook, after having posted a chain of videttes from
one bank to the other of the precipitous ravine, so as to
assure themselves that no possibility of escape was left to
the besieged in any direction, by which they conceived
escape to be practicable.
“Ha!” exclaimed Crispus, as he watched their movements,
“they will give us no more trouble to-night, but we
will make sure of them by posting one sentinel above the
gate, and another on the head of the watch-tower. Then
we will light us a good fire in the yard below, and feast
there on the beef and wine of those brute peasants. The
legionaries fancy that they can starve us out; but they know
not how well we are provided. Hark you, my Niger. Go
down and butcher those two beeves, and when they are
flayed and decapitated, blow me a good loud trumpet blast
and roll down the heads over the battlements. Long ere
we have consumed our provender, Catiline will be down
on them in force! I go to look around the place, and make
all certain.”
And, with the words, he ascended to the summit of the
old watch-tower and stood there for many minutes, surveying
the whole conformation of the country, and all the
defences of the place, with a calm and skilful eye.
The man was by no means destitute of certain natural
talents, and an aptitude for war, which, had it been cultivated
or improved, might possibly have made him a captain.
He speedily perceived, therefore, that the defences were
tenable so long only as no ladders or engines should be
brought against them; which he was well assured would
be done, within twenty-four hours at the latest. He knew
also that want of provisions must compel him to surrender
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at discretion before many days; and he felt it to be very
doubtful whether, without some strong effort on their part
Catiline would hear at all of their situation, until it should
be entirely too late.
He began, therefore, at once, to look about him for
means of despatching an envoy, nothing doubting that succor
would be sent to him instantly, could the arch traitor
be informed, that the lovely Julia was a prisoner awaiting
his licentious pleasure.
Descending from the battlements, he proceeded at once
to the barrack rooms in the rear, hoping to find some possibility
of lowering a messenger into the bed of the stream,
or transporting him across the ravine, unseen by the sentinels
of the enemy.
Then, casting open a door of fast decaying wood-work,
he entered the first of the low mouldering unfurnished
rooms; and, stepping across the paved floor with a noiseless
foot, thrust his head out of the window and gazed
anxiously up and down the course of the ravine.
He became satisfied at once that his idea was feasible;
for the old wall was built, at this place, in salient angles,
following the natural line of the cliffs; and the window
of the central room was situated in the bottom of the recess,
between two jutting curtains, in each of which was
another embrasure. It was evident, therefore, that a person
lowered by the middle window, into the gorge beneath,
would be screened from the view of any watchers, by the
projection of the walls; and Crispus nothing doubted but
that, once in the bottom of the ravine, a path might be
found more or less difficult by which to reach the upper
country.
Beyond the ravine rose many broken knolls covered
with a thick undergrowth of young chesnut hollies, wild
laurels, and the like; and through these, a winding road
might be discovered, penetrating the passes of the hills,
and crossing the glen at a half mile's distance below on a
single-arched brick bridge, by which it joined the causeway
occupied by the legionaries.
Having observed so much, Caius Crispus was on the
point of withdrawing his head, forgetting all about his
prisoner, who, on their entrance into this dismantled hold,
had been thrust in hither, as into the place where she
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would be most out of harm's way, and least likely to escape.
But just as he was satisfied with gazing, the lovely face
of Julia, pale as an image of statuary marble, with all her
splendid auburn hair unbound, was advanced out of the
middle window; evidently looking out like himself for
means of escape. But to her the prospect was not, as to
him, satisfactory; and uttering a deep sigh she shook her
head sadly, and wrung her hands with an expression of utter
despair.
“Ha! ha! my pretty one, it is too deep, I trow!” cried
Crispus, whom she had not yet observed, with a cruel
laugh, “Nothing, I swear, without wings can descend that
abyss; unless like Sappho, whom the poets tell us of, it
would put an end to both love and life together. No! no!
you cannot escape thus, my pretty one; and, on the outside,
I will make sure of you. For the rest I will send you some
watch cloaks for a bed, some supper, and some wine. We
will not starve you, my fair Julia, and no one shall harm
you here, for I will sleep across your door, myself, this
night, and ere to-morrow's sunset we shall be in the camp
with Catiline.”
He was as good as his word, for he returned almost immediately,
bringing a pile of watch-cloaks, which he arranged
into a rude semblance of a bed, with a pack saddle for
the pillow, in the innermost recess of the inner room, with
some bread, and beef broiled hastily on the embers, and
some wine mixed with water, which last she drank eagerly;
for fear and anxiety had parched her, and she was faint
with thirst.
Before he went out, again he looked earnestly from the
unlatticed window, in order to assure himself that she had
no means of escape. Scarce was he gone, before she
heard the shrill blast of the Roman trumpets blown clearly
and scientifically, for the watch-setting; and, soon afterward,
all the din and bustle, which had been rife through
the livelong day, sank into silence, and she could hear the
brawling of the brook below chafing and raving against the
rocks which barred its bed, and the wind murmuring
against the leafless treetops.
Shortly after this, it became quite dark; and after sitting
musing awhile with a sad and despairing heart, and putting
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up a wild prayer to the Gods for mercy and protection,
she went once more and leaned out of the window, gazing
wistfully on the black stones and foamy water.
“Nothing,” she said to herself sadly, repeating Caius
Crispus' words, “could descend hence, without wings,
and live. It is too true! alas! too true!—” she paused for
a moment, and then, while a flash of singular enthusiastic
joy irradiated all her pallid lineaments, she exclaimed, “but
the Great Gods be praised? one can leap down, and die!
Let life go! what is life? since I can thus preserve my
honor!” She paused again and considered; then clasped
her hands together, and seemed to be on the point of casting
herself into that awful gulf; but she resisted the temptation,
and said, “Not yet! not yet! There is hope yet, on
earth! and I will live awhile, for hope and for Paullus.
I can do this at any time—of this refuge, at least, they cannot
rob me. I will live yet awhile!” And with the words
she turned away quietly, went to the pile of watch-cloaks,
and lying down forgot ere long her sorrows and her dread,
in calm and innocent slumber.
She had not been very long asleep, however, when a
sound from without the door aroused her; and, as she
started to her feet, Caius Crispus looked into the cell with
a flambeau of pine-wood blazing in his right hand, to ascertain
if she was still within, and safe under his keeping.
“You have been sleeping, ha!” he exclaimed. “That
is well, you must be weary. Will you have more wine?”
“Some water, if you will, but no wine. I am athirst
and feverish.”
“You shall have water.”
And thrusting the flambeau into the earth, between the
crevices in the pavement, he left the room abruptly.
Scarce was he gone, leaving the whole apartment blazing
with a bright light which rendered every object within
clearly visible to any spectator from the farther side of the
ravine, before a shrill voice with something of a feminine
tone, was heard on the other brink, exclaiming in suppressed
tones—
“Hist! hist! Julia?”
“Great Gods! who calls on Julia?”
“Julia Serena, is it thou?”
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“Most miserable I!” she made answer. “But who
calls me?”
“A friend—be wary, and silent, and you shall not lack
aid.”
But Julia heard the heavy step of the swordsmith approaching,
and laying her finger on her lips, she sprang
back hastily from the window, and when her gaoler entered,
was busy, apparently, in arranging her miserable
bed.
It was not long that he tarried; for after casting one keen
glance around him, to see that all was right; he freed her
of his hated presence, taking the torch along with him, and
leaving her in utter darkness.
As soon as his footstep had died away into silence, she
hurried back to the embrasure, and gazed forth earnestly;
but the moon had not yet risen, and all the gulf of the ravine
and the banks on both sides were black as night, and
she could discern nothing.
She coughed gently, hoping to attract the attention of
her unknown friend, and to learn more of her chances of
escape; but no farther sound or signal was made to her;
and, after watching long in hope deferred, and anxiety unspeakable,
she returned to her sad pallet and bathed her
pillow with hot tears, until she wept herself at length into
unconsciousness of suffering, the last refuge of the wretched,
when they have not the christian's hope to sustain them.
She was almost worn out with anxiety and toil, and she
slept soundly, until the blowing of the Roman trumpets in
the pass again aroused her; and before she had well collected
her thoughts so as to satisfy herself where she was
and wherefore, the shouts and groans of a sudden conflict,
the rattling of stones and javelins on the tiled roof, the clang
of arms, and all the dread accompaniments of a mortal
conflict, awoke her to a full sense of her situation.
The day lagged tediously and slow. No one came near
her, and, although she watched the farther side of the
gorge, with all the frantic hope which is so near akin to
despair, she saw nothing, heard nothing, but a few wood-pigeous
among the leafless tree-tops, but the sob of the
torrent and the sigh of the wintry wind.
At times indeed the long stern swell of the legionary
trumpets would again sound for the assault, and the din of
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warfare would follow it; but the skirmishes were of shorter
and shorter duration, and the tumultuous cheering of the
rebels at the close of every onslaught, proved that their
defence had been maintained at least, and that the besiegers
had gained no advantage.
It was, perhaps, four o'clock in the afternoon; and the
sun was beginning to verge to the westward, when, just
after the cessation of one of the brief attacks—by which it
would appear that the besiegers intended rather to harass
the garrison and keep them constantly on the alert, than to
effect anything decided—the sound of armed footsteps
again reached the ears of Julia.
A moment afterward, Caius Crispus entered the room
hastily, accompanied by Niger and Rufus, the latter bearing
in his hand a coil of twisted rope, manufactured from
the raw hide of the slaughtered cattle, cut into narrow
stripes, and ingeniously interwoven.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, starting for a moment, as he saw
Julia. “I had forgotten you. We have been hardly pressed
all day, and I have had no time to think of you; but we
shall have more leisure now. Are you hungry, Julia?”
For her only reply she pointed to the food yet untouched,
which he had brought to her on the previous evening, and
shook her head sadly; but uttered not a word.
“Well! well!” he exclaimed, “we have no time to talk
about such matters now; but eat you shall, or I will have
you crammed, as they stuff fat-livered geese! Come, Niger,
we must lose no minute. If they attack again, and
miss me from the battlements, they will be suspecting
something, and will perhaps come prying to the rear.—
Have you seen any soldiers, girl, on this side? I trow you
have been gazing from the window all day long in the
hope of escaping, but I suppose you will not tell me
truly.”
“If I tell you not truly, I shall hold my peace. But I
will tell you, that I have seen no human being, no living
thing, indeed; unless it be a thrush, and three wood pigeons,
fluttering in the treetops yonder.”
“That is a lie, I dare be sworn!” cried Niger. “If it
had been the truth she would not have breathed a word of
it to us. Beside which, it is too cool altogether!”
“By Mulciber my patron! if I believed so, it should go
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hardly with her; but it matters not. Come, we must lose
no time.”
And passing into the central room of the three, they made
one end of the rope fast about the waist of Niger, and the
other to an upright mullion in the embrasure, which, although
broken half way up, afforded ample purchase
whereby to lower him into the chasm.
This done, the man clambered out of the window very
cooly, going backward, as if he were about to descend a
ladder; but, when his face was on the point of disappearing
below the sill, as he hung by his hands alone, having
no foothold whatever, he said quietly, “If I shout, Caius
Crispus, haul me up instantly. I shall not do so, if there
be any path below. But if I whistle, be sure that all is
right. Lower away. Farewell.”
“Hold on! hold on, man!” replied Crispus quickly,
“turn yourself round so as to bring your back to the crag's
face, else shall the angles of the rock maim, and the dust
blind you. That's it; most bravely done! you are a right
good cragsman.”
“I was born among the crags, at all events,” answered
the other, “and I think now that I am going to die among
them. But what of that? One must die some day! Fewer
words! lower away, I say, I am tired of hanging here between
Heaven and Tartarus!”
No words were spoken farther, by any of the party; but
the smith with the aid of Rufus paid out the line rapidly
although steadily, hand under hand, until the whole length
was run out with the exception of some three or four feet.
Just at this moment, when Crispus was beginning to
despair of success, and was half afraid that he had miscalculated
the length of the rope, the strain on it was slackened
for a moment, and then ceased altogether.
The next instant a low and guarded whistle rose from
the gorge, above the gurgling of the waters, but not so
loud as to reach any ears save those for which it was intended.
A grim smile curled the swordsmith's lip, and his fierce
eye glittered with cruel triumph. “We are safe now.—
Catiline will be here long before daybreak. Your prayers
have availed us, Julia; for I doubt not,” he added, with
malicious irony, “that you have prayed for us.”
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Before she had time to reply to his cruel sarcasm, a fresh
swell of the besiegers' trumpets, and a loud burst of shouts
and warcries from the battlement announced a fresh attack.
The smith rushed from the room instantly with Rufus at
his heels, and Julia had already made one step toward the
window, intending to attempt the perilous descent, alone
and unaided, when Crispus turned back suddenly, crying,
“The Rope! the Rope! By the Gods! do not leave the
rope! She hath enough of the Amazon's blood in her to
atttempt it—”
“Of the Roman's blood, say rather!” she exclaimed,
springing toward the casement, half maddened in perceiving
her last hope frustrated.
Had she reached it, she surely would have perished;
for no female head and hands, how strong and resolute so
ever, could have descended that frail rope, and even if
they could, the ruffian, rather than see her so escape, would
have cut it asunder, and so precipitated her to the bottom
of the rocky chasm.
But she did not attain her object; for Caius Crispus
caught her with both arms around the waist and threw
her so violently to the after end of the room, that, her head
striking the angle of the wall, she was stunned for the
moment, and lay almost senseless on the floor, while the
savage, with a rude brutal laugh at her disappointment,
rushed out of the room, bearing the rope along with him.
Scarce had he gone, however, when, audible distinctly
amid the dissonant danger of the fray, the same feminine
voice, which she had heard on the previous night, again
aroused her, crying “Hist! hist! hist! Julia.”
She sprang to her feet, and gained the window in a
moment, and there, on the other verge of the chasm, near
twenty feet distant from the window at which she stood,
she discovered the figure of a slender dark-eyed and dark-complexioned
boy, clad in a hunter's tunic, and bearing a
bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows on his shoulder.
She had never seen that boy before; yet was there
something in his features and expression that seemed familiar
to her; that sort of vague resemblance to something
well known and accustomed, which leads men to suppose
that they must have dreamed of things which
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mysteriously enough they seem to remember on their first occurrence.
The boy raised his hand joyously, and cried aloud,
without any fear of being heard, well knowing that all
eyes and ears of the defenders of the place were turned
to the side when the fight was raging, “Be of good cheer;
you are saved, Julia. Paullus is nigh at hand, but ere he
come, I will save you! Be of good courage, watch well
these windows, but seem to be observing nothing.”
And with the words, he turned away, and was lost to
her sight in an instant, among the thickly-set underwood.
Ere long, however, she caught a glimpse of him again,
mounted upon a beautiful white horse, and gallopping like
the wind down the sandy road, which wound through the
wooded knolls toward the bridge below.
Again she lost him; and again he glanced upon her
sight, for a single second, as he spurred his fleet horse
across the single arch of brick, and dashed into the woods
on the hither side of the torrent.
Two weary hours passed; and the sun was nigh to his
setting, and she had seen, heard nothing more. Her heart,
sickening with hope deferred, and all her frame trembling
with terrible excitement, she had almost begun to doubt,
whether the whole appearance of the boy might not have
been a mere illusion of her feverish senses, a vain creation
of her distempered fancy.
Still, fiercer than before, the battle raged without, and
now there was no intermission of the uproar; to which
was added the crashing of the roofs beneath heavy stones,
betokening that engines of some kind had been brought
up from the host, or constructed on the spot.
At length, however, her close watch was rewarded. A
slight stir among the evergreen bushes on the brink of the
opposite cliff caught her quick eye, and in another moment
the head of a man, not of the boy whom she had seen
before, nor yet, as her hope suggested, of her own Paullus,
but of an aquiline-nosed clean-shorn Roman soldier, with
an intelligent expression and quick eye, was thrust forward.
Perceiving Julia at the window, he drew back for a
second; and the boy appeared in his place, and then both
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showed themselves together, the soldier holding in his hand
the bow and arrows of the hunter youth.
“He is a friend,” said the boy, “do all that he commands
you.”
But so fiercely was the battle raging now, that it was
his signs, rather than his words, which she comprehended.
The next moment, a gesture of his hand warned her to
withdraw from the embrasure; and scarcely had she done
so before an arrow whistled from the bow and dropped
into the room, having a piece of very slender twine attached
to the end of it.
Perceiving the intention at a glance, the quick witted
girl detached the string from the shaft without delay, and,
throwing the latter out of the window lest it should betray
the plan, drew in the twine, until she had some forty
yards within the room, when it was checked from the
other side, neither the soldier nor the youth showing
themselves at all during the operation.
This done, however, the boy again stood forth, and
pitched a leaden bullet, such as was used by the slingers
of the day, into the window.
Perceiving that the ball was perforated, she secured it
in an instant to the end of the clue, which she held in her
hand, and, judging that the object of her friends was to
establish a communication from their side, cast it back to
them with a great effort, having first passed the twine
around the mullion, by aid of which Crispus had lowered
down his messenger.
The soldier caught the bullet, and nodded his approbation
with a smile, but again receded into the bushes, suffering
the slack of the twine to fall down in an easy curve
into the ravine; so that the double communication would
scarce have been perceived, even by one looking for it, in
the gathering twilight.
The boy's voice once more reached her ears, though his
form was concealed among the shrubbery. “Fear nothing,
you are safe,” he said. “But we can do no more until
after midnight, when the moon shall give us light to
rescue you. Be tranquil, and farewell.”—
Be tranquil!—tranquil, when life or death—honor or
infamy—bliss or despair, hung on that feeble twine, scarce
thicker than the spider's web! hung on the chance of
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every flying second, each one of which was bringing nigher
and more nigh, the hoofs of Catiline's atrocious band.
When voice of man can bid the waves be tranquil, while
the north-wester is tossing their ruffian tops, and when the
billows slumber at his bidding, then may the comforter
assay, with some chance of success, to still the throbbings
of the human heart, convulsed by such hopes, such terrors,
as then were all but maddening the innocent and tranquil
heart of Julia.
Tranquil she could not be; but she was calm and self-possessed,
and patient.
Hour after hour lagged away; and the night fell black
as the pit of Acheron, and still by the glare of pale fires and
torches, the lurid light of which she could perceive from
her windows, reflected on the heavens, the savage combatants
fought on, unwearied, and unsparing.
Once only she went again to that window, wherefrom
hung all her hopes; so fearful was she, that Crispus might
find her there, and suspect what was in process.
With trembling fingers she felt for the twine, fatal as
the thread of destiny should any fell chance sever it; and
in its place she found a stout cord, which had been quietly
drawn around the mullion, still hanging in a deep double
bight, invisible amid the gloom, from side to side of the
chasm.
And now, for the first time, she comprehended clearly
the means by which her unknown friends proposed to reach
her. By hauling on one end of the rope, any light plank
or ladder might be drawn over to the hither from the farther
bank, and the gorge might so be securely bridged, and
safely traversed.
Perceiving this, and fancying that she could distinguish
the faint clink of a hammer among the trees beyond the
forest knoll, she did indeed become almost tranquil.
She even lay down on her couch, and closed her eyes,
and exerted all the power of her mind to be composed
and self-possessed, when the moment of her destiny should
arrive.
But oh! how day-long did the minutes seem; how
more than year-long the hours.
She opened her curtained lids, and lo! what was that
faint pale lustre, glimmering through the tree-tops on the
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far mountain's brow?—all glory to Diana, chaste guardian
of the chaste and pure! it was the signal of her safety! it
was! it was the ever-blessed moon!—
Breathless with joy, she darted to the opening, and
slowly, warily creeping athwart the gloomy void, she saw
the cords drawn taught, and running stiffly, it is true, and
reluctantly, but surely, around the mouldering stone mullion;
while from the other side, ghost-like and pale, the
skeleton of a light ladder, was advancing to meet her hand
as if by magic.
Ten minutes more and she would be free! oh! the
strange bliss, the inconceivable rapture of that thought!
free from pollution, infamy! free to live happy and unblemished!
free to be the beloved, the honored bride of
her own Arvina.
Why did she shudder suddenly? why grew she rigid
with dilated eyes, and lips apart, like a carved effigy of
agonized surprise?—
Hark to that rising sound, more rapid than the rush of
the stream, and louder than the wailing of the wind! thick
pattering down the rocky gorge! nearer and nearer, 'till
it thunders high above all the tumult of the battle! the
furious gallop of approaching horse, the sharp and angry
clang of harness!—
Lo! the hot glare, outfacing the pale moonbeam, the
fierce crimson blaze of torches gleaming far down the
mountain side, a torrent of rushing fire!
Hark! the wild cheer, “Catiline! Catiline!” to the
skies! mixed with the wailing blast of the Roman trumpets,
unwillingly retreating from the half-won watchtower!—
“Pull for your lives!” she cried, in accents full of horror
and appalling anguish—“Pull! pull! if ye would not see
me perish!”—
But it was all too late. Amid a storm of tumultuous
acclamation, Catiline drew his panting charger up before
the barricaded gateway, which had so long resisted the
dread onset of the legionaries, and which now instantly
flew open to admit him. Waving his hand to his men to
pursue the retreating infantry, he sprang down from his
horse, uttering but one word in the deep voice of smothered
passion—“Julia!”—
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His armed foot clanged on the pavement, ere the bridge
was entirely withdrawn; for they, who manned the ropes,
now dragged it back, as vehemently as they had urged
forward a moment since.
“Back from the window, Julia!”—cried the voice—“If
he perceive the ropes, all is lost! Trust me, we never
will forsake you! Meet him! be bold! be daring! but
defy him not!”—
Scarce had she time to catch the friendly admonition
and act on it, as she did instantly, before the door of the
outer room was thrown violently open; and, with his sallow
face inflamed and fiery, and his black eye blazing with
hellish light, Catiline exclaimed, as he strode in hot haste
across the threshold,
“At last! at last, I have thee, Julia!”
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CHAPTER XVII. TIDINGS FROM ROME.
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Time and the tide wear through the longest day.
Shakspeare.
“At last, I have thee, Julia!”
Mighty indeed was the effort of the mind, which enabled
that fair slight girl to bear up with an undaunted lip and
serene eye against the presence of that atrocious villain;
and hope, never-dying hope, was the spirit which nerved
her to that effort.
It was strange, knowing as she did the character of that
atrocious and bloodthirsty tyrant, that she should not have
given way entirely to feminine despair and terror, or
sought by tears and prayers to disarm his purpose.
But her high blood cried out from every vein and artery
of her body; and she stood calm and sustained by conscious
virtue, even in that extremity of peril; neither
tempting assault by any display of coward weakness, nor
provoking it by any show of defiance.
There is nothing, perhaps, so difficult to any one who is
not a butcher or an executioner by trade, with sensibilities
blunted by the force of habit, as to attack or injure any
thing, which neither flies, nor resists, neither braves, nor
trembles.
And Catiline himself, savage and brutal as he was, full
of ungoverned impulse and unbridled passion, felt, though
he knew not wherefore, this difficulty at this moment.
Had she fallen at his feet, trembling, and tearful, and
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implored his mercy, he would have gloated on her terrors,
laughed tears and prayers to scorn, yea! torn her from an
altar's foot, to pour out upon her the vials of agony and
foul pollution.
Had she defied, or braved his violence, his fury would
have trampled her to the earth in an instant, and murder
would have followed in the footsteps of worse violence.
But as she stood there, firm, cold, erect, and motionless
as a statue of rare marble, with scarcely a pulse throbbing
in her veins, and her clear azure eyes fixed on him with a
cold and steady gaze, as if she would have fascinated him
by their serene chaste influence, he likewise stood and
gazed upon her with a strange mixture of impressions,
wherein something akin to love and admiration were blent
with what, in minds of better mould, should have been
reverence and awe.
He felt, in short, that he lacked `a spur to prick the
sides of his intent,' a provocation to insult and aggression
yet stronger than the passion and hot thirst of vengeance,
which had been well nigh chilled by her severe and icy
fortitude.
'Tis said that a lion will turn and flee,
From a maid in the pride of her purity;
and here a fiercer and more dangerous savage stood powerless
and daunted for the moment, by the same holy influence
of virtue, which, it is said, has potency to tame the
pinched king of the desert.
It was not, however, in the nature of that man to yield
himself up long to any influence, save that of his own passions,
and after standing mute for perhaps a minute, during
which the flush on his sallow cheek, and the glare of his
fiery eye, were blanched and dimmed somewhat, he advanced
a step or two toward her, repeating the words,
“I have thee; thou art mine, Julia.”
“Thy prisoner, Catiline,” she replied quietly—“if you
make women prisoners.”
“My slave, minion.”
“I am free-born, and noble. A patrician of a house as
ancient as thine own. My ancestors, I have heard say,
fought side by side with Sergius Silo.”
“The more cause, that their daughter should sleep side
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by side with Sergius Catiline!” he replied with bitter irony;
but there was less of actual passion in his tones, than
of a desire to lash himself into fury.
“The less cause that a free-born lady should be disgraced
by the grandson of his comrade in arms, who gave her father
being.”
Thus far her replies had been conducted in the spirit
most likely to control, if any thing could control, the demon
that possessed him; but seeing that her words had
produced more effect on him than she had deemed possible,
she made an effort to improve her advantage, and added,
looking him firmly in the eye,
“I have heard tell that thou art proud, Catiline, as they
art nobly born. Let, then, thine own pride”—
“Proud! Proud! Ha! minion! What have your nobles
left me that I should glory in—what of which I may
still be proud? A name of the grandest, blasted by their
base lies, and infamous! Service converted into shame,
valor warped into crime! At home poverty, degradation
ruin! Abroad, debt, mockery, disgrace! Proud! proud!
By Nemesis! fond girl. I am proud—to be the thing that
they have made me, a terror, and a curse to all who call
themselves patrician. For daring, remorseless! for brave,
cruel! for voluptuous, sensual! for fearless, ruthless! for
enterprising, reckless! for ambitious, desperate! for a
man, a monster! for a philosopher, an atheist! Ha! ha!
ha! ha! I am proud, minion, proud to be that I am—
that which thou, Julia, shalt soon find me!”
She perceived, when it was too late, the error which
she had made, and fearful of incensing him farther, answered
nothing. But he was not so to be set at naught, for he
had succeeded now in lashing himself into a fit of fury,
and advancing upon her, with a face full of all hideous
passions, a face that denoted his fell purpose, as plainly as
any words could declare them.
“Dost hear me, girl, I say? Thou art mine, Julia.”
“Thy prisoner, Catiline,” she again repeated in the
same steady tone as at first; but the charm had now failed
of its effect, and it was fortunate for the sweet girl, that
the fell wretch before whom she stood defenceless, had so
much of the cat-like, tiger-like spirit in his nature, so much
that prompted him to tantalize and torment before striking,
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to teaze and harass and break down the mind, before doing
violence to the body of his subject enemies, or of those
whom he chose to deem such.
Had he suspected at this moment that any chance of
succor was at hand, however remote, he lacked neither
the will nor the occasion to destroy her. He fancied that
she was completely at his mercy; and perceiving that, in
despite of her assumed coolness, she writhed beneath the
terrors of his tongue, he revelled in the fiendish pleasure
of triumphing in words over her spirit, before wreaking
his vengeance on her person.
“My slave! Julia. My slave, soul and body! my
slave, here and for ever! Slave to my passions, and my
pleasures! Wilt yield, or resist, fair girl? Resist, I do
beseech thee! Let some fire animate those lovely eyes,
even if it be the fire of fury—some light kindle those pallid
cheeks, even if it be the light of hatred! I am aweary
of tame conquests.”
“Then wherefore conquer; or conquering, wherefore
not spare?”—she answered.
“I conquer, to slake my thirst of vengeance. I spare
not, for the wise man's word to the fallen, is still, V æ Victis.
Wilt yield, or resist, Julia? wilt be the sharer, or the victim
of my pleasures? speak, I say, speak!” he shouted
savagely, perceiving that she sought to evade a direct
answer. “Speak and reply, directly, or I will do to thee
forth with what most thou dreadest! and then wipe out
thy shame by agonies of death, to which the tortures of
old Regulus were luxury.”
“If I must choose, the victim!” she replied steadily.
“But I believe you will not so disgrace your manhood.”
“Ha! you believe so, you shall feel soon and know.
One question more, wilt thou yield or resist?”—
“Resist,” she answered, “to the last, and when dishonored,
die, and by death, like Lucretia, win back greater
honor! Lucretia's death had witnesses, and her tale
found men's ears.”
“Thy death shall be silent, thy shame loud. I will
proclaim the first my deed, the last thy voluntary —.”
“Proclaim it!”—she interrupted him, with her eyes
flashing bright indignation, and her lip curling with ineffable
disdain; as she forgot all prudence in the scorn called
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forth by his injurious words—“Proclaim it to the world!
who will believe it?”—
“The world. Frailty's name is woman!”—
“And Falsehood's—Catiline!”—
“By Hades!”—and he sprang upon her with a bound
like that of a tiger, and twined his arms about her waist,
clasping her to his breast with brutal violence, and striving
to press his foul lips on her innocent mouth; but she, endowed
with momentary strength, infinitely unwonted and
unnatural, the strength of despair and frenzy, caught his
bare throat with both her hands, and writhing herself back
to the full length of her arms, uttered a volume of shrieks,
so awfully shrill and piercing, that they struck terror into
the souls of the brutal rebels without, and harrowed up
the spirits of her friends, who lay concealed within earshot,
waiting, now almost in despair, an opportunity to aid her.
So strong was the clutch which her small hands had
fixed upon his throat, that ere he could release himself,
sufficiently to draw a full breath, he was compelled to let
her go; and ere he fully recovered himself, she had made
a spring back toward the window, with the evident purpose
of throwing herself out into the yawning gulf below it.
But something caught her eye which apparently deterred
her, and turning her back upon it quickly, she faced
her persecutor once again.
At this moment, there was a loud and angry bustle in
the outer court, immediately followed by a violent knocking
at the door; but so terrible was the excitement of
both these human beings, her's the excitement of innocence
in trial, his of atrocity triumphant, that neither
heard it, though it was sudden and strong enough to have
startled any sleepers, save those of the grave.
“Ha! but this charms me! I knew not that you had so
much of the Tigress to fit you for the Tiger's mate. But
what a fool you are to waste your breath in yells and your
strength in struggles, like to those, when there are none
to hear, or to witness them.”
“Witnesses are found to all crimes right early and aven
gers!” she exclaimed with the high mien of a prophetess;
and still that vehement knocking continued, unheeded as
the earthquake which reeled unnoticed beneath the feet
of the combatants at Thrasymene.
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“To this at least there are no witnesses! there shall be
no avengers!”
“The Gods are my witnesses! shall be my avengers!”
“Tush! there are no Gods, Julia!”
And again he rushed on her and caught her in his arms
But as he spoke those impious words, sprang to do that
atrocious deed, a witness was found, and it might be an
avenger.
Unnoticed by the traitor in the fierce whirlwind of ms
passion, that hunter boy stood forth on the further brink;
revealed, a boy no longer; for the Phrygian bonnet had fallen
off, and the redundant raven tresses of a girl flowed
back on the wind. Her attitude and air were those of
Diana as she bent her good bow against the ravisher
Orion. Her right foot dvanced firmly, her right hand
drawn back to the ear, her fine eye glaring upon the arrow
which bore with unerring aim full on the breast of her own
corrupter, her own father, Catiline.
Who had more wrongs to avenge than Lucia?
Another second, and the shaft would have quivered in
the heart of the arch villain, sped by the hand from which
he deserved it the most dearly. The room within was
brighter than day from the red torch light which filled it,
falling full on the gaunt form and grim visage of the monster.
Her hand was firm, her eye steady, her heart pitiless.
But in the better course of her changed life, heaven
spared her the dread crime of parricide.
Just as the chord was at the tightest, just as the feathers
quivered, and the barb thrilled, about to leap from the tense
string, the tall form of the soldier sprang up into the clear
moonlight from the underwood, and crying “Hold! hold!”
mastered her bowhand, with the speed of light, and dragged
her down into the covert.
Well was it that he did so. For just as Catiline seized
Julia the second time in his resistless grasp, and ere his lips
had contaminated her sweet mouth, the giant Crispus, who
had so long been knocking unheeded, rushed into the room,
and seized his leader by the shoulder unseen, until he literally
touched him.
“Another time for this;” he said, “Catiline. There are
tidings from Rome; which—”
“To Tartarus with thy tidings! Let them tarry!”
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“They will not tarry, Catiline,” replied the smith, who
was as pale as a ghost and almost trembling—“least of all
for such painted woman's flesh as this is!”
“Get thee away! It were better, wiser, safer to stand
between the Lion and his prey, than between Catiline and
Julia.”
“Then have it!” shouted the smith. “All is discovered!
all undone! Lentulus and Cethegus, Gabinius and Statilius,
and Cæparius all dead by the hangman's noose in the
Tullianum!”
“The idiots! is that all? thy precious tidings! See!
how I will avenge them.” And he struggled to shake
himself free from the grasp of Crispus.
But the smith held him firmly, and replied, “It is not all,
Catiline. Metellus Celer is within ten leagues of the camp,
at the foot of the mountains. We have no retreat left into
Gaul. Come! come! speak to the soldiers! You can deal
with this harlotry hereafter.”
Catiline glared upon him, as if he would have stabbed
him to the heart; but seeing the absolute necessity of enquiring
into the truth of this report, he turned to leave the
room.
“The Gods be praised! the Gods have spoken loud!
The Gods have saved me!” cried Julia falling on her knees.
“Are there no Gods now, O Catiline?”
“To Hades! with thy Gods!” and, striking the unhappy
girl a coward blow, which felled her to the ground senseless,
he rushed from the room with his confederate in
crime, barring the outer door behind him.
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE RESCUE.
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Speed, Malise, speed, the dun deer's hide
On fleeter foot was never tied.
Lady of the Lake.
Scarcely had the door closed behind Catiline, who rushed
forth torch in hand, as if goaded by the furies of Orestes,
when half a dozen stout men, sheathed in the full armor of
Roman legionaries, sprang out of the brushwood on the
gorge's brink, and seizing the ropes which had hung idle
during that critical hour, hauled on them with such energetical
and zealous power, that the ladder was drawn
across the chasm with almost lightning speed.
The hooks, with which its outer end was garnished,
caught in the crevices of the ruined wall, and a slender
communication was established, although the slight structure
which bridged the abyss was scarcely capable of supporting
the weight of a human being.
The soldiers, accustomed, as all Roman soldiers were,
to all the expediences and resources of warefere had prepared
planks which were to be run forward on the ladder,
in order to construct a firm bridge. For the plan of the
besiegers, until interrupted by Catiline's arrival, had been
to take the stronghold in reverse, while a false attack in
front should be in progress, and throwing ten or twelve
stout soldiers into the heart of the place, to make themselves
masters of it by a coup-de-main.
This well-devised scheme being rendered unfeasible by
the sudden charge of Catiline's horse, and the rout of the
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legionaries, the small subaltern's detachment, which had
been sent round under Lucia's guidance—for it was she
who had discerned the means of passing the chasm, while
lying in wait to assist Julia, and disclosed it to the centurion
commanding—had been left alone, and isolated, its
line of retreat cut off, and itself without a leader.
The singular scenes, however, which they had witnessed,
the interest which almost involuntarily they had been
led to take in the fate of the fair girl, her calm and dauntless
fortitude, and above all the atrocious villainy of Catiline,
had inspired every individual of that little band with
an heroic resolution to set their lives upon a cast, in order
to rescue one who to all of them was personally unknown.
In addition to this, the discovery of Lucia's sex—for
they had believed her to be what she appeared, a boy—
which followed immediately on the less of her Phrygian
bonnet, and the story of her bitter wrongs, which had
taken wind, acted as a powerful incentive to men naturally
bold and enterprising.
For it is needless to add, that with the revelation of her
sex, that of her character as the arch-traitor's child and
victim went, as it were, hand in hand.
They had resolved, therefore, on rescuing the one, and
revenging the other of these women, at any risk to themselves
whatsoever; and now having waited their opportunity
with the accustomed patience of Roman veterans,
they acted upon it with their habitual skill and celerity.
But rapid as were their movements, they were outstripped
by the almost superhuman agility of Lucia, who,
knowing well the character of the human fiend with whom
they had to contend, his wondrous promptitude in counsel,
his lightning speed in execution, was well assured that
there was not one moment to be lost, if they would save
Arvina's betrothed bride from a fate worse than many
deaths.
As soon therefore as she saw the hooks of the scaling
ladder catch firm hold of the broken wall, before a single
plank had been laid over its frail and distant rungs, she
bounded over it with the light and airy foot of a practised
dancer—finding account at that perilous moment in one of
those indelicate accomplishments in which she had been
instructed for purposes the basest and most horrible.
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Accustomed as they were to deeds of energy and rapid
daring, the stout soldiers stood aghast; for, measuring the
action by their own weight and ponderous armature, they
naturally overrated its peril to one so slightly made as
Lucia.
And yet the hazard was extreme, for not taking it into
account that a single slip or false step must precipitate her
into the abyss, the slender woodwork of the ladder actually
bent as she alighted on it, from each of her long airy
bounds.
It was but a second, however, in which she glanced
across it, darted through the small embrasure, and was
lost to the eyes of the men within the darkness of the old
barrack.
Astonished though they were at the girl's successful
daring, the soldiers were not paralyzed at all, nor did they
cease from their work.
In less than a minute after she had entered the window,
a board was thrust forward, running upon the framework
of the ladder, and upon that a stout plank, two feet in
breadth, capable of supporting, if necessary, the weight of
several armed men.
Nor had this bridge been established many seconds
before the soldier in command ran forward upon it, and
met Lucia at the embrasure, bearing with strength far
greater than her slight form and unmuscular limbs appeared
to promise, the still senseless form of Julia.
Catching her from the arms of Lucia, the robust legionary
cast the fainting girl across his shoulder as though she
had been a feather; and rushed back with her toward his
comrades, crying aloud in haste alarm—
“Quick! quick! follow me quick, Lucia. I hear footsteps,
they are coming!”—
The caution was needless, for almost outstripping the
heavy soldier, the fleet-footed girl stood with him on the
farther bank.
Yet had it come a moment later, it would have come all
too late.
For having with his wonted celerity ascertained the
truth of these fatal tidings, and ordered the body of horse
whom he had brought up with him, and who had returned
from pursuing the infantry, on seeing a larger body com
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ing up from Antonius' army, to return with all speed to
the camp of Manlius, retaining only a dozen troopers as a
personal escort, Catiline had come back to bear off his
lovely captive.
The clang of his haughty step had reached the ears of
the legionary just as he drew poor Julia, unconscious of
her rescue, though the barrack window; and as they
stood on the brink of the ravine, thus far in safety, the red
glare of the torches streaming through the embrasures,
announced the arrival of their enemies, within almost arm's
length of them.
The awful burst of imprecations which thundered from
the lips of Catiline, as he perceived that his victim had
been snatched from him, struck awe even into the hearts of
those brave veterans.
A tiger robbed of its young is but a weak and poor
example of the frantic, ungovernable, beast-like rage
which appeared to prevail entirely above all senses, all
consideration, and all reason.
“May I perish ill! may I die crucified! may the fowls
of the air, the beasts of the field devour me, if she so escape!”
he shouted; and perceiving the means by which
she had been carried off, he called loudly for his men to
follow, and was in the very act of leaping out from the
embrasure upon the bridge, which they had not time to
withdraw, when one of the legionaries spurned away the
frail fabric with his foot, and drawing his short falchion
severed the cords which secured it, at a single blow.
Swinging off instantly in mid air, it was dashed heavily
against the rocky wall of the precipice, and, dislodged by
the shock, the planks went thundering down into the torrent,
at the bottom of the gorge; while upheld by the
hooks to the stone window sill, the ladder hung useless on
Catiline's side of the chasm, all communication thus completely
interrupted.
At the same moment three of the heavy pila, which
were the peculiar missiles of the legion, were hurled by as
many stout arms at the furious desperado; but it was not
his fate so to perish. One of the pondrous weapons hurtled
so close to his temple that the keen head razed the skin,
the others, blunted or shivered against the sides or lintel
of the window, fell harmless into the abyss.
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“Thou fool!” cried the man who had rescued Julia,
addressing him who had cut away the bridge, “thou
shouldst have let him reach the middle, ere thou didst
strike that blow. Then would he have lain there now,” and
he pointed down ward with his finger into the yawning gulf.
“I do not know,” replied the other. “By the Gods!
Catiline is near enough to me, when he is twenty paces
distant.”
“Thou art right, soldier, and didst well and wisely,”
said Lucia, hastily. “Hadst thou tarried to strike until
he reached the middle, thou never wouldst have stricken
at all. One foot without that window, he would have
cleared that chasm, as easily as I would leap a furrow.
But come! come! come! we must not loiter, nor lose one
instant. He will not so submit to be thwarted. I have
two horses by the roadside yonder. Their speed alone
shall save us.”
“Right! right!” replied the soldier, “lead to them
quickly. It is for life or death! Hark! he is calling his
men now to horse. We shall have a close run for it, by
Hercules!”—
“And we?”—asked one of the veterans—
“Disperse yourselves among the hills, and make your
way singly to the camp. He will not think of you, with us
before him!”—
“Farewell! The Gods guide and guard thee!”—
“We shall much need, I fear, their guidance!” answered
the legionary, setting off at a swift pace, still bearing
Julia, who was now beginning to revive in the fresh air,
following hard on Lucia, who ran, literally like the wind,
to the spot where she had tied her own beautiful white
Ister, and another horse, a powerful and well-bred Thracian
charger, to the stems of two chesnut trees, in readiness
for any fortunes.
Rapidly as the soldier ran, still the light-footed girl
outstripped him, and when he reached the sandy road, she
had already loosened the reins from the trees to which
they had been attached, and held them in readiness.
“Mount, mount,” cried Lucia, “for your life! I will
help you to lift her.”
“I am better now,” exclaimed Julia—“Oh ye Gods!
and safe too! I can help myself now! and in an instant
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she was seated behind the stout man-at-arms, and clinging
with both hands to his sword belt.
“If you see me no more, as I think you will not, Julia,
tell Paullus, Lucia saved you, and — died, for love of him!
Now—ride! ride! ride! for your life ride!”
And giving their good horses head they sprang forth,
plying the rein and scourge, at headlong speed.
As they ascended the first little hillock, they saw the
troopers of Catiline pouring out of the watch-tower gate,
and thundering down the slope toward the bridge, with
furious shouts, at a rate scarcely inferior to their own.
They had but one hope of safety. To reach the little
bridge and pass it before their pursuers should gain it,
and cut off their retreat toward their friends, whom they
knew to be nigh at hand; but to do so appeared well
nigh impossible.
It was a little in their favor that the steeds of Catiline's
troopers had been harassed by a long and unusually rapid
night march, while their own were fresh and full of spirit;
but this advantage was neutralized at least by the double
weight which impeded the progress and bore down the
energies of the noble Thracian courser, bearing Julia
and the soldier.
Again it was in their favor that the road on their side
the chasm was somewhat shorter and much more level
than that by which Catiline and his riders were straining
every nerve, gallopping on a parallel line with the
tremulous and excited fugitives; but this advantage also
was diminished by the fact that they must turn twice at
right angles—once to gain the bridge, and once more into
the high road beyond it—while the rebels had a straight
course, though down a hill side so steep that it might well
be called precipitous.
The day had by this time broken, and either party could
see the other clearly, even to the dresses of the men and
the colors of the horses, not above the sixth part of a mile
being occupied by the valley of the stream dividing the
two roads.
For life! fire flashed from the flinty road at every bound
of the brave coursers, and blood flew from every whirl of
the knotted thong; but gallantly the high-blooded beasts
answered it. At every bound they gained a little on their
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pursuers, whose horses foamed and labored down the abrupt
descent, one or two of them falling and rolling over
their riders, so steep was the declivity.
For life! Catiline had gained the head of his party, and
his black horse had outstripped them by several lengths.
If the course had been longer the safety of the fugitives
would have been now certain; but so brief was the space
and so little did they gain in that awful race, that the
nicest eye hardly could have calculated which first would
reach the bridge.
So secure of his prize was Catiline, that his keen blade
was already out, and as he bowed over his charger's neck,
goring his flanks with his bloody spurs, he shouted in his
hoarse demoniacal accents, “Victory and vengeance!”
Still, hopeful and dauntless, the stout legionary gallopped
on—“Courage!” he exclaimed, “courage, lady, we
shall first cross the bridge!”—
Had Lucia chosen it, with her light weight and splendid
horsemanship, she might easily have left Julia and the soldier,
easily have crossed the defile in advance of Catiline,
easily have escaped his vengeance. But she reined in
white Ister, and held him well in hand behind the others,
muttering to herself in low determined accents, “She shall
be saved, but my time is come!”
Suddenly there was a hasty shout of alarm from the
troopers on the other side, “Hold, Catiline! Rein up!
Rein up!” and several of the foremost riders drew in their
horses. Within a minute all except Catiline had halted.
“They see our friends! they are close at hand! We are
saved! by the Immortal Gods! we are saved!” cried the
legionary, with a cry of triumph.
But in reply, across the narrow gorge, came the hoarse
roar of Catiline, above the din of his thundering gallop.—
“By Hades! Death! or vengeance!”
“Ride! ride!” shrieked Lucia from behind, “Ride, I
say, fool! you are not saved! He will not halt for a horse
when revenge spurs him! For your life! ride!”
It was a fearful crisis.
The Thracian charger reached the bridge. The hollow
arch resounded but once under his clanging hoofs—the second
stride cleared it. He wheeled down the road, and
Julia, pale as death, whose eyes had been closed in the
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agony of that fearful expectation, unclosed them at the legionary's
joyous shout, but closed them again in terror and
despair with a faint shriek, as they met the grim countenance
of Catiline, distorted with every hellish passion, and
splashed with blood gouts from his reeking courser's side,
thrust forward parallel nearly to the black courser's foamy
jaws—both nearly within arm's length of her, as it appeared
to her excited fancy.
“We are lost! we are lost!” she screamed.
“We are saved! we are saved!” shouted the soldier as
he saw coming up the road at a gallop to meet them, the
bronze casques and floating horse-hair crests, and scarlet
cloaks, of a whole squadron of legionary cavalry, arrayed
beneath a golden eagle—the head of their column scarcely
distant three hundred yards.
But they were not saved yet, not would have been—for
Catiline's horse was close upon their croupe and his uplifted
blade almost flashed over them—when, with a wild
cry. Lucia dashed her white Ister at full speed, as she
crossed the bridge, athwart the counter of black Erebus.
The thundering speed at which the black horse came
down the hill, and the superior weight of himself and his
rider, hurled the white palfrey and the brave girl headlong;
but his stride was checked, and, blown as he was, he stumbled,
and rolled over, horse and man.
A minute was enough to save them, and before Lucia had
regained her feet, the ranks of the new comers had opened
to receive the fugitives, and had halted around them, in
some slight confusion.
“The Gods be blessed for ever!” she exclaimed, clasping
her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven. “I have
saved her!”
“And lost thyself, thrice miserable fool!” hissed a hoarse
well known voice in her ear, as a heavy hand seized her
by the shoulder, and twisted her violently round.
She stood face to face with Catiline, and met his horrid
glare of hate with a glance prouder than his own and
brighter. She smiled triumphantly, as she said in a clear
high voice.
“I have saved her!”
“For which, take thy reward, in this, and this, and this!”
And with the words he dealt her three stabs, the least of
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which was mortal; but, even in that moment of dread passion,
with fiendish ingenuity he endeavored to avoid giving
her a wound that should be directly fatal.
There writhe, and howl, 'till slow death relieve you!”
“Meet end to such beginning!” cried the unhappy girl.
“Adulterous parent! incestuous seducer! kindred slayer!
ha! ha! ha! ha!” and with a wild laugh she fell to the
ground and lay with her eyes closed, motionless and for
the moment senseless.
But he, with his child's blood smoking on his hand, shook
his sword aloft fiercely against the legionaries, and leaping
on his black horse which had arisen from the ground unhurt
by its fall, gallopped across the bridge; and plunging
through the underwood into the deep chesnut forest was
lost to the view of the soldiers, who had spurred up in
pursuit of him, that they abandoned it ere long as hopeless.
It was not long that Lucia lay oblivious of her sufferings.
A sense of fresh coolness on her brow, and the checked
flow of the blood, which gushed from those cruel wounds,
were the first sensations of which she became aware.
But, as she opened her eyes, they met well known and
loving faces; and soft hands were busy about her bleeding
gashes; and hot tears were falling on her poor pallid face
from eyes that seldom wept.
Julia was kneeling at her side, Paullus Arvina was bending
over her in speechless gratitude, and sorrow; and the
stern cavaliers of the legion, unused to any soft emotions,
stood round holding their chargers' bridles with frowning
brows, and lips quivering with sentiments, which few of
them had experienced since the far days of their gentler
boyhood.
“Oh! happy,” she exclaimed, in a soft low tone, “how
happy it is so to die! and in dying to see thee, Paullus.”
“Oh! no! no! no!” cried Julia, “you must not, shall
not die! my friend, my sister! O, tell her, Paullus, that she
will not die, that she will yet be spared to our prayers, our
love, our gratitude, our veneration.”
But Paullus spoke not; a soldier, and a man used to see
death in all shapes in the arena, he knew that there was
no hope, and, had his life depended on it, he could not, at
that moment have deceived her.
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Little, however, cared the dying girl for that; even if she
had heard or comprehended the appeal. Her ears, her
mind, were full of other thoughts, and a bright beautiful
irradiation played over her wan lips and ashy features, as
she cried joyously, although her voice was very tremulous
and weak,
“Paullus, do you hear that? her friend! her sister!
Paullus, Paullus, do you hear that? Julia calls me her
friend—me, me her sister! me the disgraced—”
“Peace! peace! Dear Lucia! you must not speak such
words!” said Paullus. Be your past errors what they may—
and who am I, that I should talk of errors?—this pure
high love—this delicate devotion—this death most heroical
and glorious no! no! I cannot—” and the strong man
bowed his head upon his hands, and burst into an agony of
tears and passion.
No revelation from on high had taught those poor Romans,
that `joy shall be in heaven, over the sinner that repenteth,
more than over ninety and nine just persons that
need no repentance.'
Yet groping darkly on their way by the dim lights of
nature and philosophy, they had perceived, at least, that
it is harder far for one corrupted from her very childhood,
corrupted by the very parents who should have guided,
with all her highest qualities of mind and body perverted
studiously till they had hardened into vices, to raise herself
erect at once from the slough of sensuality and sin, and
spring aloft, as the butterfly transmuted from the grub,
into the purity and loveliness of virtue—than for one, who
hath known no trial, suffered no temptation, to hold the
path of rectitude unswerving.
And Julia, whose high soul and native delicacy were all
incapable of comprehending the nature, much less the seductions,
of such degradation, as that poor victim of parental
villainy had undergone, saw clearly and understood
at a glance, the difficulty, the gloriousness, the wonder of
that beautiful regeneration.
“No, no. Dear Lucia, dear sister, if you love that
name,” she said in soothing tones, holding her cold hands
clasped in her own quivering fingers, “indeed, indeed you
must not think or speak of yourself thus. Your sins, if
you have sinned, are the sins of others, your virtues and
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your excellence, all, all your own. I have heard many
times of women, who have fallen from high virtue, in spite
of noble teachings, in spite of high examples, and whom
neither love nor shame could rescue from pollution—but
never, never, did I hear of one who so raised herself, alone,
unaided, in spite of evil teaching, in spite the atrocity of
others, in spite of infamous examples, to purity, devotion
such as thine! But, fear not, Lucia. Fear not, dearest
girl, you shall not die, believe—”
“I do not fear, I desire it,” said the dying girl, who was
growing weaker and fainter every moment. “To a life,
and a love like mine, both guilty, both unhappy, death is a
refuge, not a terror; and if there be, as you believe, who are
so wise and virtuous, a place beyond the grave, where
souls parted here on earth, may meet and dwell in serene
and tranquil bliss, perhaps, I say, perhaps, Julia, this death
may compensate that life—this blood may wash away the
sin, the shame, the pollution.”
“Believe it, O believe it!” exclaimed Julia earnestly.
“How else should the Gods be all-great and all-wise; since
vice triumphs often here, and virtue pines in sorrow. Be
sure, I say, be sure of it, there is a place hereafter, where
all sorrows shall be turned to joy, all sufferings compensated,
all inequalities made even. Be sure of that, dear
Lucia.”
“I am sure of it,” she replied, a brighter gleam of pleasure
crossing her features, on which the hues of death were
fast darkening. “I am sure of it now. I think my mind
grows clearer, as my body dies away. I see—I see—there
is God! Julia—there is an hereafter—an eternity—rest for
the weary, joy for the woful! yes! yes! I see—I feel it.
We shall meet, Julia. We shall meet, Paullus, Paullus!”
And she sank back fainting and overpowered upon Julia's
bosom.
In a moment or two, however, she opened her eyes
again, but it was clear that the spirit was on the point of
taking its departure.
“I am going!” she said in a very low voice. “I am
going. His sword was more merciful than its master.—
Bury me in a nameless grave. Let no stone tell the tale
of unhappy, guilty Lucia. But come sometimes, Julia,
Paullus, and look where I lie; and sometimes—will you
not sometimes remember Lucia?”
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“You shall live in our souls forever!” replied Julia,
stooping down to kiss her.
“In your arms, Paullus, in your arms! will you not let
me, Julia? 'Twere sweet to die in your arms, Paullus.”—
“How can you ask?” cried Julia, who scarce could
speak for the tears and sobs, which almost choked her.
“Here, Paullus, take her, gently, gently.”
“Oh! sweet—oh! happy!” she murmured, as she
leaned her head against his heart, and fixed her glazing
eyes upon his features, and clasped his hand with her poor
dying fingers. “She told you, Paullus, that for your love
I died to save her!”
“She did—she did—dear, dearest Lucia!”—
“Kiss me,” she whispered; “I am going very fast.
Kiss me on the brow, Paullus, where years ago you kissed
me, when I was yet an innocent child.” Then, fancying that
he hesitated, she cried, “you will let him kiss me, now,
will you not, Julia? He is yours”—
“Oh! kiss her, kiss her, Paullus,” exclaimed Julia
eagerly, “how could you fancy, Lucia, that I should wish
otherwise? kiss her lips, not her brow, Paullus Arvina.”
“Kiss me first thou, dear Julia. I may call you dear.”
“Dear Lucia, dearest sister!”
And the pure girl leaned over and pressed a long kiss
on the cold lips of the unhappy, guilty, regenerated being,
whose death had won for her honor, and life, and happiness.
“Now, Paullus, now,” cried Lucia, raising herself
from his bosom by a last feeble effort, and stretching out
her arms, “now, ere it be too late!”—
He bowed down to her and kissed her lips, and she
clasped her arms close about his neck, and returned that
last chaste caress, murmuring “Paullus, mine own in
death, mine own, own Paullus!”—
There was a sudden rigor, a passing tremulous spasm,
which ran through her whole frame for a moment—her
arms clasped his neck more tightly than before, and then
released their hold, all listless and unconscious—her head
fell back, with the eyes glazed and visionless, and the
white lips half open.
“She is dead, Julia!” exclaimed Paullus, who was not
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ashamed to weep at that sad close of so young and sorrowful
a life, “dead for our happiness!”
“Hush! hush!” cried Julia, who was still gazing on
the face of the dead—“There is a change—see! see! how
beautiful, how tranquil!”—
And in truth a sweet placid smile had settled about the
pallid mouth, and nothing can be conceived more lovely
than the calm, holy, pure expression which breathed from
every lineament of the lifeless countenance.
“She is gone, peace to her manes.”
“She is at rest, now, Paullus, she is happy!” murmured
Julia. “How excellent she was, how true, how brave,
how devoted! Oh! yes! I doubt not, she is happy.”
“The Gods grant it!” he replied fervently. “But I
have yet a duty,” and drawing his short straight sword he
severed one long dark curl from the lifeless head, and
raising it aloft in his left hand, while with the right he
pointed heavenward the gleaming steel, “Ye Gods!” he
cried, “supernal and infernal! and ye spirits and powers,
shades of the mighty dead! Hear earth, and heaven, and
thou Tartarus! by this good steel, by this right hand, in
presence of this sacred dead, I swear, I devote Catiline
and his hated head to vengeance! By this sword may he
perish; may this hair be steeped in his lifeblood; may he
know himself, when dying, the victim of my vengeance—
may dogs eat his body—and his unburied spirit know
neither Tartarus nor Elysium!”—
It was strange, but as he ceased from that wild imprecation,
a faint flash of lightning veined the remote horizon,
and a low clap of thunder rumbled afar off, echoing among
the hills—perchance the last of a storm, unheard before
and unnoticed by the distracted minds of the spectators of
that scene.
But the superstitious Romans accepted it as an omen.
“Thunder!”—cried one.
“The Gods have spoken!”—
“I hail the omen!” exclaimed Paullus, sheathing his
sword, and thrusting the tress of hair into his bosom. “By
my hand shall he perish!”
And thenceforth, it was believed generally by the soldiers,
that in the coming struggle Catiline was destined to
fall, and by the hand of Paul Arvina.
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CHAPTER XIX. THE EVE OF BATTLE.
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Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.
Macbeth.
Nearly a fortnight had elapsed since the rescue of Julia,
and the sad death of Catiline's unhappy daughter, and yet
the battle which was daily and hourly expected, had not
been fought.
With rare ability and generalship, Catiline had avoided
an action with the troops of Antonius, marching and countermarching
among the rugged passes of the Appennines,
now toward Rome, now toward Gaul, keeping the enemy
constantly on the alert, harassing the consul's outposts,
threatening the city itself with an assault, and maintaining
with studious skill that appearance of mystery, which is so
potent an instrument whether to terrify or to fascinate the
vulgar mind.
During this period the celerity of his movements had
been such that his little host appeared to be almost ubiquitous,
and men knew not where to look for his descent, or
how to anticipate the blow, which he evidently had it in
contemplation to deliver.
In the meantime, he had given such of his adherents as
fled from Rome immediately on the execution of the conspirators,
an opportunity to join him, and many had in fact
done so with their clients, and bands of gladiators.
The disaffected of the open country had all united themselves
to him; and having commenced operations with a
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force not exceeding two thousand men, he was now at the
head of six times that number, whom he had formed into
two complete legions, and disciplined them with equal
assiduity and success.
Now, however, the time had arrived when it was for
his advantage no longer to avoid an encounter with the
troops of the commonwealth; for having gained all that he
proposed to himself by his dilatory movements and Fabian
policy, time namely for the concentration of his adherents,
and opportunity to discipline his men, he now began to
suffer from the inconveniences of the system.
Unsupplied with magazines, or any regular supply of
provisions, his army like a flight of locusts had stripped the
country bare at every halting place, and that wild hill
country had few resources, even when shorn by the licentious
band of his desperadoes, upon which to support an
army. The consequence, therefore, of his incessant hurrying
to and fro, was that the valleys of the mountain chain
which he had made the theatre of his campaign, were now
utterly exhausted; that his beasts of burthen were broken
down and foundered; and that the line of his march might
be traced by the carcasses of mules and horses which had
given out by the wayside, and by the flights of carrion
birds which bovered in clouds about his rear, prescient of
the coming carnage.
His first attempt was to elude Metellus Celer, who had
marched down from the Picene district on the Adriatic
sea,
with great rapidity, and taken post at the foot of the mountains,
on the head waters of the streams which flow down
into the great plain of the Po.
In this attempt he had been frustrated by the ability of
the officer who was opposed to him, who had raised no less
than three legions fully equipped for war.
By him every movement of the conspirator was anticipated,
and met by some corresponding measure, which
rendered it abertive. Nor was it, any longer, difficult for
him to penetrate the designs of Catiline, since the peasantry
and mountaineers, who had throughout that district been
favorable to the conspiracy in the first instance, and who
were prepared to favor any design which promised to deliver
them from inexorable taxation, had been by this time
so unmercifully plundered and harassed by that banditti,
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that they were now as willing to betray Catiline to the
Romans, as they had been desirous before of giving the
Romans into his hands at disadvantage.
Fully aware of all these facts, and knowing farther that
Antonius had now come up so close to his rear, with a large
army, that he was in imminent danger of being surrounded
and taken between two fires, the desperate traitor suddenly
took the boldest and perhaps the wisest measure.
Wheeling directly round he turned his back toward Gaul,
whither he had been marching, and set his face toward the
city. Then making three great forced marches he came
upon the army of Antonius, as it was in column of march,
among the heights above Pistoria, and had there been daylight
for the attack when the heads of the consul's cohorts
were discovered, it is possible that he might have forced
him to fight at disadvantage, and even defeated him.
In that case there would have been no force capable of
opposing him on that side Rome, and every probability
would have been in favor of his making himself master of
the city, a success which would have gone far to insure his
triumph.
It was late in the evening, however, when the hostile
armies came into presence, each of the other, and on that
account, and, perhaps, for another and stronger reason,
Catiline determined on foregoing the advantages of a
surprise.
Caius Antonius, the consul in command, it must be remembered,
had been one of the original confederates in
Catiline's first scheme of massacre and conflagration,
which had been defeated by the unexpected death of
Curius Piso.
Detached from the conspiracy only by Cicero's rare
skill, and disinterested cession to him of the rich province
of Macedonia. Antonius might therefore justly be supposed
unlikely to urge matters to extremities against his quondam
comrades; and it was probably in no small degree
on this account that Catiline had resolved on trying the
chances of battle rather against an old friend, than against
an enemy so fixed, and of so resolute patrician principles
as Metellus Celer.
He thought, moreover, that it was just within the calculation
of chances that Antonius might either purposely
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mismanœuvre, so as to allow him to descend upon Rome
without a battle, or adopt such tactics as should give him
a victory.
He halted his army, therefore, in a little gorge of the
hills opening out upon a level plain, flanked on the left by
the steep acclivities of the mountain, which towered in
that direction, ridge above ridge, inaccessible, and on the
right by a rugged and rocky spur, jutting out from the
same ridge, by which his line of battle would be rendered
entirely unassailable on the flanks and rear.
In this wild spot, amid huge gray rocks, and hanging
woods of ancient chesnuts and wild olive, as gray and
hoary as the stones among which they grew, he had pitched
his camp, and now lay awaiting in grim anticipation
what the morrow should bring forth; while, opposite to
his front, on a lower plateau of the same eminence, the
great army of the consul might be descried, with its regular
entrenchments and superb array of tents, its forests of
gleaming spears, and its innumerable ensigns, glancing
and waving in the cold wintry moonshine.
The mind of the traitor was darker and more gloomy
than its wont. He had supped with his officers, Manlius
and a nobleman of Fæsulæ, whose name the historian has
not recorded, who held the third rank in the rebel army,
but their fare had been meagre and insipid, their wines
the thin vintage of that hill country; a little attempt at
festivity had been made, but it had failed altogether; the
spirits of the men, although undaunted and prepared to
dare the utmost, lacked all that fiery and enthusiastic ardor,
which kindles patriot breasts with a flame so pure and
pervading, on the eve of the most desperate encounters.
Enemies of their country, enemies almost of mankind,
these desperadoes were prepared to fight desperately, to
fight unto the death, because to win was their only salvation,
and, if defeated, death their only refuge.
But for them there was no grand heart-elevating spur
to action, no fame to be won, no deathless name to be purchased—
their names deathless already, as they knew too
well, through black infamy!—no grateful country's praises,
to be gained cheaply by a soldier's death!—no! there
were none of these things.
All their excitements were temporal, sensual, earthy.
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The hope to conquer, the lust to bask in the sunshine of
power, the desire to revel at ease in boundless luxury and
riot.
And against these, the rewards of victory, what were
the penalties of defeat—death, infamy, the hatred and the
scorn of ages.
The wicked have no friends. Never, perhaps, was this
fact exemplified more clearly than on that battle eve.
Community of guilt, indeed, bound those vicious souls together—
community of interests, of fears, of perils, held
them in league—yet, feeling as they did feel that their sole
chance of safety lay in the maintenance of that confederation,
each looked with evil eyes upon his neighbor, each
almost hated the others, accusing them internally of having
drawn them into their present perilous peril, of having
failed at need, or of being swayed by selfish motives only.
So little truth there is in the principle, which Catiline
had set forth in his first address to his banded parricides,
“that the community of desires and dislikes constitutes, in
one word, true friendship!”—
And now so darkly did their destiny lower on those depraved
and ruined spirits, that even their recklessness,
that last light which emanates from crime in despair, had
burned out, and the furies of conscience,—that conscience
which they had so often stifled, so often laughed to scorn,
so often drowned with riot and debauch, so often silenced
by fierce sophistry—now hunted them, harpies of the soul,
worse than the fabulous Eumenides of parricide Orestes.
The gloomy meal was ended; the parties separated, all
of them, as it would seem, relieved by the termination of
those mock festivities which, while they brought no gayity
to the heart, imposed a necessity of seeming mirthful
and at ease, when they were in truth disturbed by dark
thoughts of the past, and terrible forebodings of the future.
As soon as his guests had departed and the traitor was
left alone, he arose from his seat, according to his custom,
and began to pace the room with vehement and rapid
strides, gesticulating wildly, and muttering sentences, the
terrible oaths and blasphemies of which were alone audible.
Just at this time a prolonged flourish of trumpets from
without, announced the changing of the watch. I was
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nine o'clock. “Ha! the third hour!” already, he exclaimed,
starting as he heard the wild blast, “and Chærea
not yet returned from Antonius. Can it be that the dog
freedman has played me false, or can Antonius have seized
him as a hostage?—I will go forth,” he added, after a
short pause, “I will go forth, and observe the night.”
And throwing a large cloak over his armor, and putting
a broad-brimmed felt hat upon his head, in lieu of the
high crested helmet, he sallied out into the camp, carrying
in addition to his sword a short massive javelin in his
right hand.
The night was extremely dark and murky. The moon
had not yet risen, and but for the camp-fires of the two armies,
it would have been impossible to walk any distance
without the aid of a torch or lantern. A faint lurid light
was dispersed from these, however, over the whole sky,
and thence was reflected weakly on the rugged and broken
ground which lay between the entrenched lines of
the two hosts.
For a while, concealed entirely by his disguise, Catiline
wandered through the long streets of tents, listening to the
conversation of the soldiers about the watch-fires, their
strange superstitious legends, and old traditionary songs;
and, to say truth, the heart of that desperate man was
somewhat lightened by his discovery that the spirits of the
men were alert and eager for the battle, their temper keen
and courageous, their confidence in the prowess and ability
of their chief unbounded.
“He is the best soldier, since the days of Sylla,” said
one gray-headed veteran, whose face was scarred by the
Pontic scymetars of Mithridates.
“He is a better soldier in the field, than ever Sylla was,
by Hercules!” replied another.
“Aye! in the field! Sylla, I have heard say, rarely unsheathed
his sword, and never led his men to hand and
hand encounter,” interposed a younger man, than the old
colonists to whom he spoke.
“It is the head to plan, not the hand to execute, that
makes the great captain. Caius, or Marcus, Titus or Tullus,
can any one of them strike home as far, perhaps farther,
than your Syllas or your Catilines.”
“By Mars! I much doubt it!” cried another. “I would
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back Catiline with sword and buckler against the stoutest
and the deftest gladiator that ever wielded blade. He is
as active and as strong as a Libyan tiger.”
“Aye! and as merciless.”
“May the foe find him so to-morrow!”
“To-morrow, by the Gods! I wish it were to-morrow
It is cold work this, whereas, to-morrow night, I promise
you, we shall be ransacking Antonius' camp, with store of
choice wines, and rare viands.”
“But who shall live to share them is another question.”
“One which concerns not those who win.”
“And by the God of Battles! we will do that to-morrow,
let who may fall asleep, and who may keep awake to
tell of it.”
“A sound sleep to the slumberers, a merry rouse to the
quick boys, who shall keep waking!” shouted another
and the cups were brimmed, and quaffed amid a storm of
loud tumultuous cheering.
Under cover of this tumult, Catiline withdrew from the
neighborhood, into which he had intruded with the stealthy
pace of the beast to which the soldiers had compared him;
and as he retired, he muttered to himself—“They are in
the right frame of mind—of the right stuff to win—and yet—
and yet—” he paused, and shook his head gloomily, as
if he dared not trust his own lips to complete the sentence
he had thus begun.
A moment afterward he exclaimed—“But Chærea! but
Chærea! how long the villain tarries! By heaven! I will
go forth and meet him.”
And suiting the action to the word, he walked rapidly
down the Quintana or central way to the Prætorian gate,
there giving the word to the night-watch in a whisper, and
showing his grim face to the half-astonished sentinel on
duty, he passed out of the lines, alone and unguarded.
After advancing a few paces, he was challenged again
by the pickets of the velites, who were thrust out in advance
of the gates, and again giving the word was suffered
to pass on, and now stood beyond the farthest outpost of
his army.
Cautiously and silently, but with a swift step and determined
air, he now advanced directly toward the front of
the Roman entrenchments, which lay at a little more than
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a mile's distance from his own lines, and ere long reached
a knoll or hillock which would by daylight have commanded
a complete view of the whole area of the consul's
camp, not being much out of a sling's cast from the ramparts.
The camp of the consul lay on the slope of a hill, so that
the rear was considerably higher than the front; Catiline's
eye, as he stood on that little eminence, could therefore
clearly discern all the different streets and divisions of the
camp, by the long lines of lamps and torches which blazed
along the several avenues, and he gazed anxiously and long,
at that strange silent picture.
With the exception of a slight clash and clang heard at
times on the walls, where the skirmishers were going on
their rounds, and the neigh of some restless charger, there
was nothing that should have indicated to the ear that
nearly twenty thousand men were sleeping among those
tented lines of light—sleeping how many of them their
last natural slumber.
No thoughts of that kind, however, intruded on the
mind of the desperado.
Careless of human life, reckless of human suffering, he
gazed only with his enquiring glance of profound penetration,
hoping to espy something, whereby he might learn
the fate—not of his messenger, that was to him a matter
of supreme indifference—but of his message to Antonius.
Nor was he very long in doubt on this head; for while
he was yet gazing, there was a bustle clearly perceptible
about the prætorium, lights were seen flitting to and fro,
voices were heard calling and answering to one another,
and then the din of hammers and sounds of busy preparation.
This might have lasted perchance half an hour, to the
great amazement of the traitor, who could not conceive
the meaning of that nocturnal hubbub, when the clang of
harness succeeded by the heavy regular tramp of men
marching followed the turmoil, and, with many torches
borne before them, the spears and eagle of a cohort were
seen coming rapidly toward the Prætorian Gate.
“By Hecate!” cried Catiline—“what may this mean, I
wonder. They are too few for an assault, nay! even for
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a false alarm. They have halted at the gate! By the
Gods! they are filing out! they march hitherward! and
lo! Manlius is aware of them. I will risk something to
tarry here and watch them.”
As he spoke, the cohort marched forward, straight on
the hillock where he stood; and so far was it from seeking
to conceal its whereabout, that its trumpets were blown
frequently and loudly, as if to attract observation.
Meantime the camp of Catiline was on the alert also,
the ramparts were lined with torches, by the red glare of
which the legionaries might be seen mustering in dense
array with shields in serried order, and spear heads twinkling
in the torch-light.
As the cohorts approached the hill, Catiline fell back
toward his own camp a little, and soon found shelter in
a small thicket of holleys and wild myrtle which would effectually
conceal him from the enemy, while he could observe
their every motion from its safe covert.
On the hillock, the cohort halted—one manipule stood to
its arms in front, while the rest formed a hollow square,
all facing outward around its summit. The torches were
lowered, so that with all his endeavors, Catiline could by
no means discover what was in process within that guarded
space.
Again the din of hammers rose on his ear, mixed now
with groans and agonizing supplications, which waxed at
length into a fearful howl, the utterance of one, past doubt,
in more than mortal agony.
A strange and terrible suspicion broke upon Catiline,
and the sweat started in beadlike drops from his sallow
brow. It was not long ere that suspicion became certainty.
The clang of the hammers ceased; the wild howls sank
into a continuous weak pitiful wailing. The creak of pullies
and cordage, the shouts of men plying levers, and
hauling ropes, succeeded, and slowly sullenly uprose, hardly
seen in the black night air, a huge black cross. It
reached its elevation, and was made fast in almost less
time than it has taken to relate it, and instantly a pile of
faggots which had been raised a short distance in front of
it, and steeped in oil or some other unctuous matter, was
set on fire.
A tall wavering snowwhite glare shot upward, and
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revealed, writhing in agony, and wailing wofully, the naked
form of Chærea, bleeding at every pore from the effects of
the merciless Roman scourging, nailed on the fatal cross.
So near was the little thicket in which Catiline lay, that
he could mark every sinew of that gory frame working in
agony, could read every twitch of those convulsed features.
Again the Roman trumpets were blown shrill and piercing,
and a centurion stepping forward a little way in front
of the advanced manipule, shouted at the pitch of his voice,
“Thus perish all the messengers of parricides
and traitors!”
Excited, almost beyond his powers of endurance, by
what he beheld and heard, the fierce traitor writhed in his
hiding place, not sixty paces distant from the speaker, and
gnashed his teeth in impotent malignity. His fingers
griped the tough shaft of his massive pilum, as if they
would have left their prints in the close-grained ash.
While that ferocious spirit was yet strong within him,
the wretched freedman, half frenzied doubtless by his tortures,
lifted his voice in a wild cry on his master—
“Catiline! Catiline!” he shrieked so thrillingly that every
man in both camps heard every syllable distinct and
clear. “Chærea calls on Catiline. Help! save! Avenge!
Catiline! Catiline!”
A loud hoarse laugh burst from the Roman legionaries,
and the centurion shouted in derision.
But at that instant the desperate spectator of that horrid
scene sprang to his feet reckless, and shouting, as he leaped
into the circle of bright radiance,
“Catiline hears Chærea, and delivers,”—hurled his
massive javelin with deadly aim at his tortured servant.
It was the first blow Catiline ever dealt in mercy, and
mercifully did it perform its errand.
The broad head was buried in the naked breast of the
victim, and with one sob, one shudder, the spirit was released
from the tortured clay.
Had a thunderbolt fallen among the cohort, the men
could not have been more stunned—more astounded. Before
they had sufficiently recovered from their shock to cast
a missile at him, much less to start forth in pursuit, he was
half way toward his own camp in safety; and ere long a
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prolonged burst, again and again reiterated, of joyous acclamations,
told to the consular camp that the traitors knew
and appreciated the strange and dauntless daring of that
almost ubiquitous leader.
An hour afterward that leader was alone, in his tent,
stretched on his couch, sleeping. But oh! that sleep—not
gentle slumber, not nature's soft nurse—but nature's horrible
convulsion! The eyes wide open, glaring, dilated in
their sockets as of a strangled man—the brow beaded
with black sweat drops—the teeth grinded together—the
white lips muttering words too horrible to be recorded—
the talon-like fingers clutching at vacancy.
It was too horrible to last. With a wild cry, “Lucia!
Ha! Lucia! Fury! Avenger! Fiend!” he started to his
feet, and glared around him with a bewildered eye, as if
expecting to behold some ghastly supernatural visitant.
At length, he said, with a shudder—which he could not
repress, “It was a dream! A dream—but ye Gods! what
a dream! I will sleep no more—'till to-morrow. To-morrow,”
he repeated in a doubtful and enquiring tone,
“to-morrow. If I should fall to-morrow, and such dreams
come in that sleep which hath no waking, those dreams
should be reality—that reality should be—Hell! I know
not—I begin to doubt some things, which of yore I held
certain! What if there should be Gods! avenging, everlasting
torturers! If there should be a Hell! Ha! ha!”
he laughed wildly and almost frantically. “Ha! ha! what
matters it? Methinks this is a hell already!” and with
the words he struck his hand heavily on his broad breast,
and relapsed into gloomy and sullen meditation.
That night he slept no more, but strode backward and
forward hour after hour, gnawing his nether lip till the
blood streamed from the wounds inflicted by his unconscious
teeth.
What awful and mysterious retribution might await him
in the land of spirits, it is not for mortals to premise; but
in this at least did he speak truth that night—conscience
and crime may kindle in the human heart a Hell, which
nothing can extinguish, so long as the soul live identical
self-knowing, self-tormenting.
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CHAPTER XX. THE FIELD OF PISTORIA.
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Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
Macbeth.
The first faint streaks of day were scarcely visible in
the east, when Catiline, glad to escape the horrors which
he had endured through the dark solitude of the night
watches, issued from his tent, armed at all points, and
every inch a captain.
All irresolution, all doubt, all nervousness had passed
away. Energy and the strong excitement of the moment
had overpowered conscience; and looking on his high,
haughty port, his cold hard eye, his resolute impassive
face, one would have said that man, at least, never trembled
at realities, far less at shadows.
But who shall say in truth, which are the shadows of this
world, which the realities? Many a one, it may be, will
find to his sorrow, when the great day shall come, that the
hard, selfish, narrow fact, the reality after which his whole
life was a chase, a struggle, is but the shadow of a shade;
the unsubstantial good, the scholar's or the poet's dream,
which he scorned as an empty nothing, is an immortal
truth, an everlasting and immutable reality.
Catiline shook at shadows, whom not the `substance of
ten thousand soldiers armed in proof,' could move, unless
it were to emulation and defiance.
Which were in truth more real, more substantial causes
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of dismay, those shadows which appalled him, or those
realities which he despised.
Ere that sun set, upon whose rising he gazed with an
eye so calm and steadfast, that question, to him at least,
was solved for ever—to us it is, perhaps, still a question.
But, at that moment, he thought nothing of the past, nothing
of the future. The present claimed his whole undivided
mind, and to the present he surrendered it, abstracted
from all speculations, clear and unclouded, and pervading
as an eagle's vision.
All his arrangements for the day had been made on the
previous night so perfectly, that the troops were already
filing out from the Prætorian gate in orderly array, and
taking their ground on the little plain at the mouth of the
gorge, in the order of battle which had been determined
by the chiefs beforehand.
The space which he had selected whereon to receive
the attack of Antonius' army, was indeed admirably chosen.
It front it was so narrow, that eight cohorts, drawn
up in a line ten deep, according to the Roman usage, filled
it completely; behind these, the twelve remaining cohorts,
which completed the force of his two legions, were arrayed
in reserve in denser and more solid order, the interval
between the mountains on the left, and the craggy hill on
the right, which protected his flanks, being much narrower
as it ascended toward the gorge in which the rebel camp
was pitched.
In front of the army, there was a small plain, perfectly
level, lying in an amphitheatre, as it were, of rocks and
mountains, with neither thicket, brake, nor hillock to mar
its smooth expanse or hinder the shock of armies, and extending
perhaps half a mile toward the consular army.
Below this, the ground fell off in a long abrupt and rugged
declivity, somewhat exceeding a second half mile in length,
with many thickets and clumps of trees on its slope, and
the hillock at its foot, whereon still frowned Chærea's cross
with the gory and hideous carcase, already blackened by
the frosty night wind, hanging from its rough timbers, an
awful omen to that army of desperate traitors.
Beyond that hillock, the ground swelled again into a
lofty ridge, facing the mouth of the gorge in which
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Catiline had arrayed his army, with all advantages of position,
sun and wind in his favor.
The sun rose splendid and unclouded, and as his long
rays streamed through the hollows in the mountain top,
nothing can be conceived more wildly romantic than the
mountain scene, more gorgeous and exciting than the living
picture, which they illuminated.
The hoary pinnacles of the huge mountains with their
crowns of thunder-splintered rocks, the eyries of innumerable
birds of prey, gleaming all golden in the splendors of
the dawn—their long abrupt declivities, broken with crags,
feathered with gray and leafless forests, and dotted here
and there with masses of rich evergreens, all bathed in
soft and misty light—and at the base of them the mouth
of the deep gorge, a gulf of massive purple shadow,
through which could be descried indistinctly the lines of
the deserted palisades and ramparts, whence had marched
out that mass of living valor, which now was arrayed in
splendid order, just where the broad rays, sweeping down
the hills, dwelt in their morning glory.
Motionless they stood in their solid formation, as living
statues, one mass, as it appeared, of gold and scarlet; for
all their casques and shields and corslets were of bright burnished
bronze, and all the cassocks of the men, and cloaks
of the officers of the vivid hue, named from the flower of
the pomegranate; so that, to borrow a splendid image of
Xenophon describing the array of the ten thousand, the
whole army lightened with brass, and bloomed with crimson.
And now, from the camp in the rear a splendid train
came sweeping at full speed, with waving crests of crimson
horse hair dancing above their gleaming helmets, and
a broad banner fluttering in the air, under the well-known
silver eagle, the tutelar bird of Marius, the God of the
arch-traitor's sacrilegious worship.
Armed in bright steel, these were the body guard of
Catiline, three hundred chosen veterans, the clients of his
own and the Cornelian houses, men steeped to the lips in
infamy and crime, soldiers of fifty victories, Sylla's atrocious
colonists.
Mounted on splendid Thracian chargers, with Catiline
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at their head, enthroned like a conquering king on his superb
black Erebus, they came sweeping at full gallop
through the intervals of the foot, and, as they reached the
front of the array, wheeled up at once into a long single
line, facing their infantry, and at a single wafture of their
leader's hand, halted all like a single man.
Then riding forward at a foot's pace into the interval
between the horse and foot, Catiline passed along the
whole line from end to end, surveying every man, and
taking in with his rapid and instinctive glance, every minute
detail in silence.
At the right wing, which Manlius commanded, he paused
a moment or two, and spoke eagerly but shortly to his
subordinate; but when he reached the extreme left he
merely nodded his approbation to the Florentine, crying
aloud in his deep tones the one word, “Remember!”
Then gallopping back at the top of his horse's speed to
the eagle which stood in front of the centre, he checked
black Erebus so suddenly that he reared bolt-upright and
stood for a second's space pawing the vacant air, uncertain
if he could recover that rude impulse. But the rare
horsemanship of Catiline prevailed, and horse and man
stood statue-like and immoveable.
Then, pitching his voice so high and clear that every
man of that dense host could hear and follow him, he
burst abruptly into the spirited and stirring speech which
has been preserved complete by the most elegant[7] of Roman
writers.
“Soldiers, I hold it an established fact, that words cannot
give valor—that a weak army cannot be made strong,
nor a coward army brave, by any speech of their commander.
How much audacity is given to each man's spirit,
by nature, or by habit, so much will be displayed in
battle. Whom neither glory nor peril can excite, you
shall exhort in vain. Terror deafens the ears of his intellect.
I have convoked you, therefore, not to exhort, but
to admonish you in brief, and to inform you of the causes
of my counsel. Soldiers, you all well know how terrible
a disaster the cowardice and sloth of Lentulus brought on
himself and us; and how, expecting reinforcements from
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the city, I was hindered from marching into Gaul. Now
I would have you understand, all equally with me, in what
condition we are placed. The armies of our enemy, two
in number, one from the city, the other from the side of
Gaul, are pressing hard upon us. In this place, were it
our interest to do so, we can hold out no longer, the scarcity
of corn and forage forbid that. Whithersoever we
desire to go, our path must be opened by the sword.
Wherefore I warn you that you be of a bold and ready
spirit; and, when the battle have commenced, that ye remember
this, that in your own right hand ye carry wealth,
honor, glory, moreover liberty and your country. Victorious,
all things are safe to us, supplies in abundance shall
be ours, the colonies and free boroughs will open their
gates to us. Failing, through cowardice, these self-same
things will become hostile to us. Not any place nor any
friend shall protect him, whom his own arms have not protected.
However, soldiers, the same necessity doth not
actuate us and our enemies. We fight for our country,
our liberty, our life! To them it is supererogatory to do
battle for the power of a few nobles. Wherefore, fall on
with the greater boldness, mindful of your own valor. We
might all of us, have passed our lives in utter infamy as
exiles; a few of you, stripped of your property, might still
have dwelt in Rome, coveting that of your neighbors. Because
these things appeared too base and foul for men's
endurance, you resolved upon this career. If you would
quit it, you must perforce be bold. No one, except victorious,
hath ever exchanged war for peace. Since to expect
safety from flight, when you have turned away from the
foe, that armor which defends the body, is indeed madness.
Always in battle to who most fears, there is most
peril. Valor stands as a wall to shield its possessor. Soldiers,
when I consider you, and recall to mind your deeds,
great hopes of victory possess me. Your spirit, age, and
valor, give me confidence; moreover that necessity of
conquest, which renders even cowards brave. As for the
numbers of the enemy, the defiles will not permit them to
surround you. And yet, should Fortune prove jealous
of your valor, beware that ye lose not your lives unavenged;
beware that, being captured, ye be not rather
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butchered like sheep, than slain fighting like men, and leaving
to your foes a victory of blood and lamentation.”
He ceased, and what a shout went up, seeming to shake
the earth-fast hill, scaring the eagles from their high nests,
and rolling in long echoes, like reverberated thunder
among the resounding hills. Twice, thrice, that soul
fraught acclamation pealed up to heaven, sure token of
resolution unto death, in the hardened hearts of that desperate
banditti.
Catiline drank delighted inspiration from the sound, and
cried in triumphant tones:
“Enough! your shout is prophetic! Soldiers, already
we have conquered!”
Then leaping from his charger to the ground, he turned
to his body-guard, exclaiming,
“To fight, my friends, we have no need of horses; to
fly we desire them not! On foot we must conquer, or on
foot die! In all events, our peril as our hope must be equal.
Dismount then, all of ye, and leading your chargers to the
rear slay them; so shall we all run equal in this race of
death or glory!”
And, with the word, leading his superb horse through
the intervals between the cohorts of the foot, he drew his
heavy sword, and smote him one tremendous blow which
clove through spine and muscle, through artery and vein
and gullet, severing the beauteous head from the graceful
and swanlike neck, and hurling the noble animal to the
earth a motionless and quivering mass.
It was most characteristic of the ruthless and brutal temper
of that parricidal monster, that he cut down the noble
animal which had so long and so gallantly borne him,
which had saved his life more than once by its speed and
courage, which followed him, fed from his hand, obeyed
his voice, like a dog, almost like a child, without the slightest
show of pity or compunction.
Many bad, cruel, savage-hearted men, ruthless to their
own fellows, have proved themselves not devoid altogether
of humanity by their love to some faithful animal, but it
would seem that this most atrocious of mankind lacked
even the “one touch of nature which makes the whole world
kin.”
He killed his favorite horse, the only friend, perhaps,
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that he possessed on earth, not only unreluctant, but with
a sort of savage glee, and a sneering jest—
“If things go ill with us to day, I shall be fitly horsed
on Erebus, by Hades!”
Then, hurrying to the van, he took post with his three
hundred, and all the picked centurions and veterans of the
reserve, mustered beneath the famous Cimbric Eagle, in
the centre of the first rank, prepared to play out to the
last his desperate and deadly game, the ablest chief, and
the most daring soldier, that ever buckled blade for parricide
and treason.
eaf146v2.n7[7] Sallust.
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CHAPTER XXI. THE BATTLE.
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At least we'll die with harness on our back.
Macbeth.
It was indeed time that the last arrangements of the
traitor were completed; for, long since, from the gates of
the Consular camp the great army of the enemy had been
filing out, and falling into order, not a mile distant.
One third, at least, superior to the rebel host in numbers,
the loyal soldiers were as high in spirit, as firm in resolution;
were better armed, better officered, and, above all,
strong in a better cause.
Nor if those had the incentive of despair to spur them to
great deeds, did these lack a yet stronger stimulus to action.
There were bright eyes, and fair forms in their
camp, dependent on their victory for life, and, yet dearer,
honor. So great was the terror spread through those regions
by the name of Catiline, and by the outrages committed
already by his barbarous banditti, that all the female
nobility of the provinces, wherein the war was waging,
had fled to the Roman camp, as to their only place of
safety.
For all that district was ripe for insurrection; the borough
towns awaited only the first sunshine of success, to
join the rebellion; the rural slaves were, to a man, false
at heart; and it was evident to all that the slightest check
of the Consular forces would be the signal for tumult, massacre,
and conflagration in the provincial towns, for all the
horrors of a servile rising in the champaign.
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Flight to Rome was impossible, since all the villainy
and desperate crime of the land was afloat, and every
where, beyond the outposts of Antonius' head quarters, the
roads were infested with banditti, runaway slaves, and rustic
robbers.
To the camp, therefore, had all the patricians of the
district flocked, the men as volunteers, with such of their
clients as they could trust, and such of their wealth as was
portable; the women as suppliants, tearful and terrified,
for Rome's powerful protection.
Meanwhile, for leagues around, by day the open country
was seen blackened by numberless columns of smoke, by
night flashing with numberless pyres of flame, the blaze of
country seats and villas; and terror was on all sides, murder
and rape, havoc and desolation.
The minds of the Roman soldiery were inflamed, therefore,
to the utmost; the sight of the ravaged country, the
charms, the tears, the terrors of the suppliant ladies, had
kindled all that was patriotic, all that was generous, all that
was manly in their nature; and it was with deep-recorded
vows of vengeance that they had buckled on their armor,
and grinded their thirsty swords for the conflict.
But throughout all that ardent host there was not one
so determined, so calm in his resolved ire, so deadly bent
on vengeance, as Paullus Arvina.
Julia was in the camp; for no means had occurred of
sending her to Rome in safety, and her high counsels, her
noble feminine courage, would have given birth alone to
contagious valor in her lover's spirit, had he been weak and
faltering as of old between his principles and his passions.
But it was not so. The stern trials to which his constancy
had been subjected, the fearful strife of the hottest
passions which had raged so long in his bosom, had hardened
him like steel thrice tempered in the furnace, and
he was now no longer the impulsive, enthusiastic, changeful
stripling, in whom to-day's imagination swept away
yesterday's resolve, but a cool, resolute, thoughtful man.
It is events, not years, which make men old or young.
It is adversity and trial, not ease and prosperity, which
make men, from dwarfs, giants.
And events had so crowded on the boy in the last few
months, that those months had matured his wisdom more
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than all the years of his previous life. Adversity and trial
had so swelled his mental stature, that aged men might
have been proud to cope with him in counsel, strong men
to rival him in execution.
The sun was already high in heaven, when the cavalry
of the seventh legion, which had been selected to act as the
general's escort, in addition to the Prætorian cohort of infantry,
swept forth from the gates, following Petreius, who,
although holding the second rank only in the army, was
actually in command; Antonius, on the pretext of a fit of
the gout, having declined to lead that day.
The men were already marshalled at the base of the ascent,
leading to the narrow plain on which, as in the amphitheatre,
the fight was to be fought out hand to hand,
with little room for generalship, or intricate manœuvring,
but every opportunity for the display of mortal strength
and desperate gallantry.
Here they had halted, on the verge of the broken
ground, awaiting the arrival of their general in chief to reform
their array, and complete their preparations, before
advancing to the attack.
The lines of the enemy were concealed from them by
the abrupt acclivity, and the level space on the top of the
plateau, which intervened between the hosts; and it seemed
probable that an officer of Catiline's intuitive eye and
rapid resource, would not fail to profit by the difficulties of
the ground, in order to assail the consular troops while
struggling among the rocks and thickets which encumbered
the ascent. It behoved, therefore, to hold the men well
in hand, to fortify the heads of the advancing columns with
the best soldiers, and to be ready with reinforcements at
all points; and to this end Petreius had ordered a brief
halt, before attacking.
So eager were the spirits of the men, however, and so
hot for the encounter, that they were murmuring already
almost angrily, and calling on their centurions and tribunes
to lead them at once to the shock.
The fierce acclamations of the rebels, consequent on the
address of Catiline, had kindled not daunted the brave indignation
which possessed them; and stung, as it were, by
some personal insult, each soldier of the array burned to
be at it.
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So stood the case, when, escorted by the magnificent
array of the legionary horse, Petreius gallopped through
the ranks. A military man, by habit as by nature, who
had served for more than thirty years as tribune, præfect
of allies, commander of a legion, and lastly prætor, all with
exceeding great distinction, he knew nearly all the men in
his ranks by sight, was acquainted with their services and
honors, had led them oftentimes to glory, and was their
especial favorite.
He made no set speech, therefore, to his legions, but as
he gallopped through the lines called to this man or that
by name, bidding him recollect this skirmish, or think
upon that storm, fight as he did in this pitched battle, or
win a civic crown as in that sally, and finally shouted to
them all in a high voice, entreating them to remember that
they were Roman soldiers, fighting against a rabble of
unarmed banditti, for their country, their wives, their children,
their hearths and their altars.
One full-mouthed shout replied to his brief address.
“Lead on! Petreius, we will conquer!”
He waved his hand toward the trumpeters, and nodded
his high crested helmet; and instant there pealed forth that
thrilling brazen clangor, “that bids the Romans close.”
Nor less sonorously did the war music of the rebels
make reply, ringing among the hills their bold defiance.
Then onward rolled that bright array, with a long steady
sweep, like that of an unbroken line of billows rushing in
grand and majestical upon some sandy cape.
In vain did the sinuosities of the broken ground, in vain
did crag and thicket, ravine and torrents' bed impede their
passage; closing their files or serrying them, as the nature
of the ascent required, now wheeling into solid column,
deploying now into extended line, still they rolled onward,
unchecked, irresistible—
A long array of helmets bright,
A long array of spears.
The glorious eagles glittered above them in the unclouded
sunshine, the proud initials, which had gleamed
from their crimson banners over one half the world, shone
out conspicuous, SPQR, as the broad folds streamed to
their length upon the frosty air.
A solitary trumpet spoke at times, to order their slow
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terrible advance; there was no hum of voices, no shout,
no confusion; only the solemn and continuous tramp of
their majestic march, shaking the earth like an incessant
roll of thunder—only the clang of their brazen harness, as
buckler clashed with buckler.
All the stern discipline, all the composed and orderly
manœuvres, all the cold steadiness of modern war was
there, combined with all the gorgeousness and glitter of
the chivalric ages.
Contrary to all expectation, no opposition met them as
they scaled that abrupt hill side. Fearful of exposing his
flanks, Catiline wisely held his men back, collecting all
their energies for the dread onset.
In superb order, regular and even, Petreius' infantry
advanced upon the plateau, their solid front filling the
whole space with a mass of brazen bucklers, ten deep, and
thrice ten hundred wide, without an interval, or break, or
bend in that vast line.
Behind these came the cavalry, about a thousand strong,
and the Prætorian cohort, with the general in person, forming
a powerful reserve, whereby he proposed to decide
the day, so soon as the traitors should be shaken by his
first onset.
Once more the line was halted; once more Petreius gallopped
to the van; and passed from left to right across the
front, reconnoitering the dispositions of the enemy. Then
taking post, at the right, he unsheathed his broadsword,
and waved it slowly in the air, pointing to the impassive
ranks of Catiline.
Then the shrill trumpets flourished once again, and the
dense mass bore onward, steady and slow, the enemy still
motionless and silent, until scarce sixty yards intervened
between the steadfast ranks, and every man might distinguish
the features and expression of his personal antagonist.
There was a pause. No word was given. No halt ordered.
But intuitively, as if by instinct, every man stopped,
and drew a deep breath, unconscious that he did so, collecting
himself for the dread struggle.
The point was reached, from which it was customary to
hurl the tremendous volley of ponderous steel-headed pila,
which invariably preceded the sword charge of the legions,
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and for the most part threw the first rank of the enemy
into confusion, and left them an easy conquest to the short
stabbing sword, and sturdy buckler.
But now not a javelin was raised on either side—the
long stern swell of the trumpets, ordering the charge, was
drowned by a deep solemn shout, which pealed wilder and
higher yet into a terrible soul-stirring cheer; and casting
down their heavy missiles, both fronts rushed forward simultaneously,
with their stout shields advanced, and their
short broadswords levelled to the charge.
From flank to flank, they met simultaneous, with a roar
louder than that of the most deafening thunder, a shock that
made the earth tremble, the banners flap upon their staves,
the streams stand still, as if an earthquake had reeled under
them.
Then rose the clang of blades on helm and buckler,
clear, keen, incessant; and charging shouts and dying cries,
and patriotic acclamations, and mad blasphemies; and ever
and anon the piercing clangor of the screaming brass, lending
fresh frenzy to the frantic tumult.
From right to left, the plain was one vast arena full of
single combats—the whole first ranks on both sides had
gone down at the first shock; the second and the third had
come successively to hand to hand encounter; and still, as
each man fell, stabbed to death by the pitiless sword, another
leaped into his place; and still the lines, though bent
on each side and waving like a bow, were steadfast and
unbroken; and still the clang of brazen bucklers and steel
blades rang to the skies, rendering all commands, all words,
inaudible.
Officers fought like privates; skirmishers, hand to hand,
like legionaries. Blood flowed like water; and so fierce
was the hatred of the combatants, so deadly the nature of
the tremendous stabbing broadswords of the Romans, that
few wounds were inflicted, and few men went down 'till
they were slain outright.
The dust stood in a solid mass over the reeling lines;
nor could the wind, though it blew freshly, disperse the
dense wreaths, so constantly did they surge upward from
the trampling feet of those inveterate gladiators. At times,
the waving of a banner would be seen, at times a gleamy
brazen radiance, as some rank wheeled forward, or was
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forced back in some desperate charge; but, for the most
part, all was dim and dark, and the battle still hung balanced.
Wherever the fight was the fiercest, there rang the
warshout “Catiline! Catiline!” to the darkened skies;
and there ever would the Roman army waver, so furiously
did he set on with his best soldiers, still bringing up reserves
to the weakest points of his army, still stabbing
down the fiercest of the consular host, fearless, unwearied,
and unwounded.
But his reserves were now all engaged, and not one
point of the Roman line was broken; Manlius had fallen
in the front rank, playing a captain's and a soldier's part.
The Florentine had fallen in the front rank, battling with
gallantry worthy a better cause. All the most valiant officers,
all the best veterans had fallen, in the first rank, all
with their faces to the foe, all with their wounds in front,
all lying on the spot which they had held living, grim-visaged,
and still terrible in death.
“Paullus Arvina!” exclaimed Petreius, at this juncture,
after having observed the equal strife long and intently,
and having discerned with the eagle eye of a general's instinct
what had escaped all those around him, that Catiline's
last reserves were engaged. “The time is come;
ride to the tribune of the horse, and bid him dismount his
men. Horse cannot charge here! command the tribune of
the Prætorian cohort to advance! We will strike full at
the centre!”
“I go, Petreius!” and bowing his head, till his crimson
crest mingled with his charger's mane, he spurred furiously
to the rear, and had delivered his message and returned,
while the shouts, with which the reserve had greeted the
command to charge, were yet ringing in the air.
When he returned, the general had dismounted, and
one of his freedmen was unbuckling the spurs from his
steel greaves. His sword was out, and it was evident that
he was about to lead the last onset in person.
“A boon, noble Petreius!” cried the youth, leaping from
his horse—“By all the Gods! By all your hopes of glory!
grant me one boon, Petreius.”
“Ha! what?” returned the general quickly—“Speak
out, be brief—what boon?”
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“Be it mine to head the charge!”
“Art thou so greedy of fame, boy; or so athirst to die!”
“So greedy of Revenge, Petreius. I have a vow in
Heaven, and in Hell, to slay that parricide. If he should
die by any hand but mine, I am forsworn and infamous!”
“Thou, boy, and to slay Catiline!”
“Even I, Petreius.”
“Thou art mad to say it.”
“Not mad, not mad, indeed, Petreius —.”
“He will slay him, Petreius,” cried an old veteran of
Arvina's troop. “The Gods thundered when he swore it.
We all heard it. Grant his prayer, General; we will
back him to the death. But be sure, he will slay him.”
“Be it so,” said Petreius, struck despite himself by the
confidence of the youth, and the conviction of the veterans.
“Be it so, if ye will. But, remember, when we
have broken through the centre, wheel to the right with
the dismounted horse—the Prætorians must charge to the
left. Ho! we are all in line. Forward! Ho! Victory,
and Rome!”—
And with the word, he rushed forward, himself a spear's
length in front of his best men, who, with a long triumphant
shout, dashed after him.
Passing right through the wearied troops, who had sustained
the shock and brunt of the whole day, and who
now opened their ranks gladly to admit the reinforcement,
these fresh and splendid soldiers fell like a thunderbolt
upon the centre of Catiline's army, weakened already by
the loss of its best men; and clove their way clean through
it, solid and unbroken, trampling the dead and dying under
foot, and hurling a small body of the rebels, still combating
in desperation, into the trenches of their camp,
wherein they perished to a man refusing to surrender, and
undaunted.
Then, wheeling to the left and right, they fell on the
naked flanks of the reeling and disordered mass, while the
troops whom they had relieved, re-forming themselves rapidly,
pressed forward with tremendous shouts of victory,
eager to share the triumph which their invincible steadiness
had done so much to win.
It was a battle no longer; but a route; but a carnage.
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Yet still not one of the rebels turned to fly; not one laid
down his arms, or cried for quarter.
Broken, pierced through, surrounded, overwhelmed by
numbers, they fought in single lines, in scattered groups,
in twos or threes, back to back, intrepid to the last, and
giving mortal wounds in their extreme agony.
More of the consular troops fell, after the field was won,
than during all the previous combat. No lances, no long
weapons, no missiles were at hand, wherewith to over-whelm
the desperadoes; no horse wherewith to tread
them under foot; hand to hand, man to man, it was fought
out, with those short stabbing blades, against which the
stoutest corslet was but as parchment, the hardest shield
of brass-bound bull's hide, but as a stripling's wicker
target.
Still in the front, abreast still with the bravest veterans
shouting himself hoarse with cries of “To me! to me, Catiline,
to me, Paul Arvina!” The young man had gone
through the whole of that dreadful meleè; striking down
a man at every blow, and filling the soldiers' mouths with
wonder at the boy's exploits—he had gone through it all,
without a scratch, unwounded.
More than once had his mortal enemy been almost within
arm's length of him; their eyes had glared mutual hatred
on each other, their blades had crossed once, but still
the throng and rush of combatants and flyers had forced
them asunder; and now the strife was almost ended, the
tide of slaughter had receded toward the rebel camp, the
ramparts of which the legionaries were already storming.
Weary and out of breath and disappointed, Paullus
Arvina halted alone, among piles of the dying and the
dead, with groans and imprecations in his ears, and bitterness
and vexation at his heart.
His comrades had rushed away on the track of the retreating
rebels; and their shouts, as they stormed the palisades,
reached him, but failed to awake any respondent
note of triumph in his spirit.
He had no share in the vulgar victory, he cared not to
strike down and slaughter the commoners of the rebellion.
Catiline was the quarry at which he flew, and
with no game less noble could he rest contented.
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Catiline, it would seem, had escaped him for the moment;
and he stood leaning on his red sword, doubtful.
Instinctively he felt assured that his enemy had not retreated.
Almost he feared that his death had crowned
some other hand with glory.
When suddenly, a mighty clatter arose in the rear, toward
the Roman camp, and turning swiftly toward the
sound, he perceived a desperate knot of rebels still charging
frantically onward, although surrounded by thrice
their numbers of inveterate and ruthless victors.
“By the Gods! he is there!” and with the speed of
the hunted deer, he rushed toward the spot, bounding in
desperate haste over the dying and the dead, blaspheming
or unconscious.
He reached the meleè. He dashed headlong into the
thick of it. The Romans were giving way before the fury
of a gory madman, as he seemed, who bore down all that
met him at the sword's point.
“Catiline! Catiline!” and at the cry, the boldest of the
consular army recoiled. “Ho!—Romans! Ho! who will
slay Sergius Catiline? Ho! Romans! Ho! His head is
worth the winning! Who will slay Sergius Catiline?”
And, still at every shout, he struck down, and stabbed,
and maimed, and trampled, even amid defeat and ruin victorious,
unsubdued, a terror to his victors.
“Who will slay Sergius Catiline?”
And, as Arvina rushed upon the scene, the veteran who
had so confidently announced his coming triumph, crossed
swords with the traitor, and went down in a moment,
stabbed a full span deep in his thigh.
“Ho! Romans! Ho! who will slay Sergius Catiline?”—
“Paullus Arvina!”—cried the youth, springing forward,
and dealing him with the word a downright blow upon
the head, which cleft his massive casque asunder.
“I will! I, even I, Paullus Arvina!”—
But he shouted too soon; and soon rued the imprudence
of raising his arm to strike, when at sword's point with
such a soldier.
As his own blow fell on the casque of the traitor, his
shortened blade, aimed with a deadly thrust tore through
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the sturdy shield, tore through the strong cuirass, and
pierced his side with a ghastly wound.
Arvina staggered—he thought he had received his death
blow; and had not the blade of Catiline, bent by the violence
of his own effort, stuck in the cloven shield, resisting
every attempt to withdraw it, the next blow must have
found him unprepared, must have destroyed him.
But ere the desperado could recover his weapon, Arvina
rallied and closed with him, grasping him by the throat,
and shouting “Lucia! Vengeance!”—
Brave as he was and strong, not for a single moment
could Arvina have maintained that death-grapple, had his
foe been unwounded.
But the arch traitor was bleeding at every pore; gashed
in every limb of his body; he had received three mortal
wounds already; he was fast failing when Arvina grappled
him, and at the name of his injured child, his conscience
conquered. His sword at length came away, extricated
when too late from the tough bull-hide; but, ere he
could nerve his arm to strike again, Arvina's point had
torn his thigh, had gored his breast, had pierced his naked
throat, with three wounds, the least of them mortal.
But even in that agony he struck home! He could not
even curse, but he struck home, and a fierce joyous smile
illuminated his wan face, as he saw his slayer stumble forward,
and fall beside him on the bloody greensward.
In a moment, however, Paullus rallied, recovered his
feet, drew from his bosom the long black ringlet of poor
Lucia, and bathed it in the life blood of her slayer.
“Lucia! Ho! Lucia! Rejoice! my vow, my vow is
kept! Thou art avenged, avenged! Ah! Lucia!—
Julia!”—
And he fell sick and swooning upon the yet living bleeding
body of his mortal foeman.
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CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF HORROR.
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Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent.
Childe Harold.
The battle was at an end; the sun had set; the calm and
silvery moon was sailing through the azure skies; as
peaceful as though her pure light shone upon sights of
happiness alone, and quiet. The army of the commonwealth
had returned to their camp victorious, but in sadness,
not triumph.
Of the magnificent array, which had marched out that
morning from the Prætorian gate, scarce two-thirds had
returned at sun-set.
And the missing were the best, the bravest, the most
noble of the host; for all the most gallant had fallen dead
in that desperate struggle, or had sunk down faint, with
wounds and bloodshed, beside the bodies of their conquered
foemen.
Of the rebels there was not a remnant left; some had escaped
from that dread route; and of that mighty power,
which at the close of day was utterly exterminated, it is on
record that neither in the combat, while it lasted, nor in the
slaughter which followed it, was any free born citizen taken—
a living captive.
For the numbers engaged on both sides it is probable
that never in the annals of the world was there the like
carnage; nor is this wonderful, when the nature of the
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ground, which rendered flight almost impossible to the
vanquished, the nature of the weapons, which rendered
almost every wound surely mortal, and the nature of the
strife, which rendered the men of either party pitiless and
desperate, are all taken into consideration.
In long ranks, like grass in the mower's swathes, the
rebel warriors lay, with their grim faces, and glazed eyes,
set in that terrible expression of ferocity which is always
observed on the lineaments of those who have died from
wounds inflicted by a stabbing weapon; and under them,
or near them, in ghastly piles were heaped, scarce less in
number, the corpses of their slaughtered conquerors. So
equal was the havoc; so equal the value which the men
had set on their own lives, and on those of their enemies.
Never perhaps had there been such, or so signal, a retribution.
They who had taken to the sword had perished by
the sword, not figuratively but in the literal meaning of
the words. Stabbers by trade, they had fallen stabbed, by
the hands of those whom they had destined to like massacre.
With the exception of the five chiefs who had already
wrestled out their dark spirits, in the Tullianum, slavishly
strangled, there was no traitor slain save by the steel
blade's edge.
The field of Pistoria was the tribunal, the ruthless sword
the judge and executioner, by which to a man the conspirators
expiated their atrocious crimes.
No chains, no scaffolds followed that tremendous field.
None had survived on whom to wreak the vengeance of
the state. Never was victory so complete or final.
But in that victory there was no triumph, no joy, no
glory to the victors.
So long, and so desperate had been the battle, so furiously
contested the series of single combats into which it
was resolved, after the final and decisive charge of the
Prætorian cohort, that the shades of the early winter night
were already falling over the crimson field, when, weak
and shattered, sorrowful and gloomy, the Roman host was
recalled by the wailing notes of the brazen trumpets from
that tremendous butchery.
The watches were set, as usual, and the watch fires kindled;
but no shouts of the exulting soldiers were to be
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heard hailing their general “Imperator;” no songs of triumph
pealed to the skies in honor of the great deeds done,
the deathless glory won; no prizes of valor were distributed;
no triumph—not an oration even—was to be hoped
for by the victorious leader of that victorious host, which
had conquered indeed for the liberties of Rome, but had
conquered, not on foreign earth, in no legitimate warfare,
against no natural foe, but on the very soil of the republic,
at the very gates of Rome, in an unnatural quarrel, against
Romans, citizens, and brothers.
The groans of the wounded, the lamentations of friends,
the shrieks of women, went up the livelong night from that
woful camp. To hear that grievous discord, one would
have judged it rather the consequences of defeat than of
victory, however sad and bloody.
No words can express the anguish of the ladies, with
whom the camp was crowded, as rushing forth to meet the
returning legions, they missed the known faces altogether,
or met them gashed and pallid, borne home, perhaps to die
after long suffering, upon the shields under which they had
so boldly striven.
Enquiries were fruitless. None knew the fate of his
next neighbor, save in so much as this, that few of those
who went down in such a meleè, could be expected ever
again to greet the sunrise, or hail the balmy breath of
morning.
Averted heads and downcast eyes, were the sole replies
that met the wives, the mothers, the betrothed maidens,
widowed ere wedded, as with rent garments, and dishevelled
hair, and streaming eyes, they rushed into the sorrowful
ranks, shrieking, “Where are they,” and were answered
only by the short echo, “Where.”
Such was the fate of Julia. No one could tell her aught
of her Arvina; until at a late hour of the night, remembering
her solitary situation and high birth, and taking a deep
interest in her sorrows, Petreius himself visited her, not to
instil false hope, but to console if possible her wounded
spirit by praises of her lost lover's conduct.
“He fought beside my right hand, Julia, through the
whole of that deadly struggle; and none with more valor,
or more glory. He led the last bloody onset, and was the
first who cut his way through the rebel centre. Julia, you
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must not weep for him, you must not envy him such glory.
Julia, he was a hero.”
“Was!” replied the poor girl, with clasped hands and
streaming eyes—“then he is no longer?”
“I do not know, but fear it,” said the stout soldier;
“He had vowed himself to slay Catiline with his own
hands. Such vows are not easy, Julia, nor safe of performance.”
“And Catiline?” asked Julia,—“the parricide—the
monster?”
“Has not survived the strife. None of the traitors have
survived it,” replied Petreius. “But how he fell, or where,
as yet we know not.”
“Paullus hath slain him! my own, my noble Paullus.”
“I think so, Julia,” answered the general.
“I know it,” she said slowly—“but what availeth that
to me—to me who had rather hear one accent of his noble
voice, meet one glance of his glorious eye—alas! alas!
my Paullus! my Lord! my Life! But I will not survive
him!”
“Hold, Julia, hold! I would not nurse you to false
hopes, but he may yet be living; many are wounded doubtless,
who shall be saved to-morrow—”
“To-morrow?” she exclaimed, a gleam of hope bursting
upon her soul like the dayspring. “Why not to-night?—
Petreius, I say, why not to-night?”
“It is impossible. The men are all worn out with
wounds and weariness, and must have daylight to the task.
Dear girl, it is impossible.”
“I will go forth myself, alone, unaided, I will save him.”
“You must not, Julia.”
“Who shall prevent me? Who dare to part a betrothed
maiden from her true lover,—true, alas! in death! in
death!”
“I will,” replied Petreius firmly. “You know not the
perils of such a night as this. The gaunt wolves from the
Appennines; the foul and carrion vultures; the plundering
disbanded soldiers; the horrid unsexed women, who roam
the field of blood more cruel than the famished wolf, more
sordid than the loathsome vulture. I will prevent you,
Julia. But with the earliest dawn to-morrow I will
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myself go with you. Fare you well, try to sleep, and hope,
hope for the best, poor Julia.”
And with a deep sigh at the futility of his consolation,
the noble Roman left the tent, giving strict orders to the
peasant girls who had been pressed into her service, and
to Arvina's freedmen who were devoted to her, on no account
to suffer her to leave the camp that night, and even,
if need were, to use force to prevent her.
Meanwhile the frost wind had risen cold and cutting
over the field of blood. Its chilly freshness, checking the
flow of blood and fanning the brow of many a maimed and
gory wretch, awoke him to so much at least of life, as to
be conscious of his tortures; and loud groans, and piercing
shrieks, and agonizing cries for water might be heard now
on all sides, where, before the wind rose, there had been
but feeble wailings and half-unconscious lamentations.
Then came a long wild howl from the mountain side,
another, and another, and then the snarling fiendish cry of
the fell wolf-pack.
Gods! what a scream of horrid terror rose from each
helpless sufferer, unanimous, as that accursed sound fell
on their palsied ears, and tortured them back into life.
But cries were of no avail, nor prayers, nor struggles,
nor even the shouts, and trumpet blasts, and torches of the
legionaries from the camp, who hoped thus to scare the
bloodthirsty brutes from their living prey, of friend and foe,
leal comrade and false traitor.
It was all vain, and ere long to the long-drawn howls
and fierce snarls of the hungry wolves, battening upon their
horrid meal, were added the flapping wings and croaking
cries of innumerable night birds flocking to the carnage;
and these were blended still with the sharp outcries, and
faint murmurs, that told how keener than the mortal sword
were the beak and talon, the fang and claw, of the wild
beast and the carrion fowl.
Such, conquerors, such a thing is glory!
That frost wind, among others awakened Paullus to
new life, and new horrors. Though gashed and weak from
loss of blood, none of his wounds were mortal, and yet he
felt that, unaided, he must die there, past doubt, even if
spared by the rending beak, and lacerating talon.
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As he raised himself slowly to a sitting posture, and was
feeling about for his sword, which had fallen from his grasp
as he fainted, he heard his name called feebly by some one
near him.
“Who calls Arvina?” he replied faintly. “I am here.”
“I, Caius Pansa,” answered the voice; it was that of the
old legionary horseman, who had predicted so confidently
the fall of Catiline by the hand of Paullus. “I feared thou
wert dead.”
“We shall both be dead soon, Caius Pansa,” replied the
young man. “Hark! to those wolves! It makes my
very flesh creep on my bones! They are sweeping this
way, too.”
“No! no! cheer up, brave heart,” replied the veteran.
“We will not die this bout. By Hercules! only crawl to
me, thou. My thigh is broken, and I cannot stir. I have
wine here; a warming draught, in a good leather bottle.
Trust to old Caius for campaigning! I have life enough
in me to beat off these howling furies. Come, Paullus;
come, brave youth. We will share the wine! You shall
not die this time. I saw you kill that dog—I knew that
you would kill him. Courage, I say, crawl hitherward.”
Cheered by the friendly voice, the wounded youth crept
feebly and with sore anguish to the old trooper's side, and
shared his generously proffered cup; and, animated by the
draught, and deriving fresh courage from his praises, endured
the horrors of that awful night, until the day breaking
in the east scared the foul beasts and night birds to
their obscene haunts in the mountain peaks and caverns.
Many times the gory wings had flapped nigh to them,
and the fierce wolf-howls had come within ten feet of
where they sat, half recumbent, propped on a pile of dead,
but still their united voices and the defensive show which
they assumed drove off the savages, and now daylight and
new hopes dawned together, and rescue was at hand and
certain.
Already the Roman trumpets were heard sounding, and
the shouts of the soldiers, as they discerned some friend
living, or some leader of the rebels dead or dying, came
swelling to their ears, laden with rapture, on the fresh
morning air.
At this moment, some groans broke out, so terribly
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acute and bitter, from a heap of gory carcasses hard by Arvina
and the old trooper, that after calling several times in
vain to enquire who was there, the veteran said,
“It were pity, Paullus, that after living out such a mele
è as this, and such a night as the last, any poor fellow
should die now. Cannot you crawl to him with the flask,
and moisten his lips; try, my Paullus.”
“I will try, Caius, but I am stiffer than I was, and my
hurts shoot terribly, but I will try.”
And with the word, holding the leathern bottle in his
teeth, he crawled painfully and wearily toward the spot
whence the sounds proceeded; but ere he reached it,
creeping over the dead, he came suddenly on what seemed
a corpse so hideous, and so truculently savage, so horribly
distorted in the death pang, that involuntarily he paused to
gaze upon it.
It was Catiline, although at first he recognised him not,
so frightfully was his face altered, his nether lip literally
gnawed half-through, by his own teeth in the death agony,
and his other features lacerated by the beak and talons of
some half-gorged vulture.
But, while he gazed, the heavy lids rose, and the glazed
eyes stared upon him in ghastly recognition; Paullus knew
him at the same moment, and started back a little, drawing
a deep breath through his set teeth, and murmuring,
“Ah! Catiline!”
The dying traitor's lips were convulsed by a fearful sardonic
grin, and he strove hard to speak, but the words rattled
in his throat inarticulate, and a sharp ruckling groan
was the only sound that he uttered.
But with a mighty effort he writhed himself up from the
ground, and drove his sword, which he still clasped in his
convulsed fingers, by a last desperate exertion through
Paullus' massive corslet, and deep into his bosom.
With a sharp cry the youth fell prone, and after two
or three struggles to arise, lay on his face motionless, and
senseless.
Catiline dropped back with a fiendish grin, and eyes
rolling in a strange mixed expression of agony and triumph;
while old Pansa, after crying, twice or thrice, “Paullus,
ho! noble Paullus!' exclaimed mournfully, “Alas! He is
dead! He is dead! And I it is who have slain him.”
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Within half an hour, Petreius and his guards with several
mounted officers, and a lady upon a white palfrey, came
riding slowly toward the fatal spot, pausing from time to
time to examine every pile of carcasses, and after causing
his men to dismount and turn over the bodies, in the hope
of finding him they sought.
Their search had hitherto been fruitless, and unrewarded
even by the discovery of any wounded friends or comrades,
for this was the place in which the battle had been
most desperately contested, and few had fallen here but
to die almost on the instant.
But now a weak voice was heard calling to the general.
“Petreius, he is here! here! He is here, noble Petreius!”
“The immortal Gods be praised!” cried Julia, interpreting
the casual words at once to signify Arvina, and
giving her palfrey the rein, she gallopped to the spot, followed
by Petreius shaking his head gloomily; for he was
not so deceived.
“Who? who is here?” exclaimed the general. “Ha!
my stout Pansa, right glad am I to find you living. See
to him, quickly, Postumus, and Capito. But whom do you
mean? Who is here?”
“Catiline! Paullus Arvina slew him!”—
“By all the Gods!” exclaimed Petreius, leaping down
from his horse and gazing at the hideous mutilated carcase,
still breathing a little, and retaining in its face that ferocity
of soul which had distinguished it while living!
But swifter yet than he, Julia sprang from her saddle,
and rushed heedless and unconscious, through pools of
blood, ancle deep, treading on human corpses, in her wild
haste, and cast herself down on the well known armor, the
casque crested and the cloak embroidered by her own delicate
hands, which could alone be distinguished of her
lover's prostrate form.
“Aye! me! aye me! dead! dead! my own Arvina!”
“Alas! alas!”—cried Petreius, “Raise her up; raise
them both, this is most lamentable!”—
“Never heed me!” said the veteran Pansa, eagerly, to
the officers who were busy raising him from the ground.
“Help the poor girl! Help the brave youth! He may be
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living yet, though I fear me not. It is my fault, alas! that
he is not living now!”
“Thy fault, old Pansa, how can that be, my friend?—
who slew him?”
Once more the rigid features of Catiline relaxed into a
horrid smile, the glaring eyes again opened, and starting
half upright he shook his hand aloft, and with a frightful
effort, half laugh, half groan, half words articulate, sneered
fiendishly—“I! I. Ha! ha! I did. Ha! ha! ha!
ha!”—
But at the same instant there was a joyous cry from the
officers who had lifted Paullus, and a rapturous shriek
from Julia.
“He is not dead!”
“His hurts are not mortal, lady, it is but loss of blood.”
“He lives! he lives!”—
“Curses! cur—cur—ha! ha!—this—this is—Hades!”
The fierce sneer died from the lips, a look of horror
glared from the savage eyes, the jaw gibbered and fell, a
quick spasm shook the strong frame, and in a paroxysm of
frustrated spite, and disappointed fury, the dark spirit,
which had never spared or pitied, went to its everlasting
home.
It was the dead of winter, when the flame of rebellion
was thus quenched in rebel blood; Cicero still was consul.
But it was blithesome springtide, and the great orator
had long since sworn THAT HE HAD SAVED HIS COUNTRY,
among the acclamations of a people for once grateful;
had long since retired into the calm serenity of private life
and literary leisure, when Paullus was sufficiently recov
ered from his wounds to receive the thanks of his friend
and benefactor; to receive in the presence of the good and
great Consular his best reward in the hand of his sweet
Julia. It was balmy Italian June, and all in Rome was
peace and prosperity, most suitable to the delicious season,
when on the sacred day of Venus,[8] clad in her snow-white
bridal robe, with its purple ribands and fringes, her
blushing face concealed by the saffron-colored nuptial veil,
the lovely girl was borne, a willing bride, over the threshold
of her noble husband's mansion, amid the merry
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blaze of waxen torches, and the soft swell of hymeneal
music, and the congratulations of such a train of consuls,
consulars, senators and patricians, as rarely had been seen
collected at any private festival. In a clear voice, though
soft and gentle, she addressed Paullus with the solemn formula—
“Where thou art Caius, I am Caia.”
Thenceforth their trials ceased, their happiness began;
and thenceforth, they two were one for ever. And, for
years afterward, when Roman maidens called blessings
down upon a kindred bride, they had no fairer fate to wish
her than to be happy as Arvina's Julia.
And how should any man be blessed, in this transitory
life, if not by the love of such a girl as Julia, the friendship
of such a man as Cicero, the fame of such a deed, as the
death of THE Roman Traitor.
THE END.
eaf146v2.n8[8] Friday.
