The Catiline Conspiracy s-2

by John Maddox Roberts

  Crassus was a man badly in need of glory. He had held the highest offices and seemed to own half the money in the world, so glory was all that was left. Did he want it badly enough to take Rome by coup? Rome itself was the one thing Pompey had not yet taken. If so, it meant that Crassus had finally gone mad, as had Marius in his later years, yet I did not think so. He might be playing some deeper game, one that was as hidden from Catilina as it was from me.

  I was thinking about Crassus because I did not want to think about Aurelia. Was she no more than bait, a form of bond to keep me attached to Catilina and his cause? If so, he had discerned my weakness with an astuteness I would not have given him credit for. She bedazzled my mind and senses like no woman since-well, since Clodia. Was my susceptibility to women now common knowledge?

  Asklepiodes had once said to me: "Young men are easily led about by the masculine member. You are one of the few I have known who are intelligent enough to know when it is being done to him yet susceptible enough to allow the process to continue regardless."

  Had someone-Clodia, perhaps-told Catilina that nothing was necessary to secure my participation except to dangle a beautiful woman before my aristocratic nose? That I would then become the most malleable of clay, as my lower organs seized control from my brain? I did not know. I did know that I wanted Aurelia again, and felt that I could never get enough of her.

  Cicero's house was near the Forum, a small but elegant dwelling that he maintained to be close to the seat of government. He had other houses both in the city and in the countryside, but during the fall and winter he was usually to be found in this one. Many Romans retired with the onset of darkness, but I knew that Cicero always worked late into the night. The janitor asked my business when I called at the front door.

  "The Quaestor Metellus," I said, in a low voice, "to see the Consul on an urgent matter." The janitor said something to a slave boy who ran off into the interior of the house. A few minutes later Tiro appeared and admitted me. Tiro was Cicero's secretary and close companion, so indispensable that he was almost as famous as Cicero himself.

  "Please come with me, Quaestor," Tiro said. "My master is with another visitor at the moment, but he wishes to see you and will come as soon as he has a few free minutes." He led me to a small room off the atrium where a table had already been set with refreshments, As a lawyer and now as Consul, Cicero was accustomed to receiving late visitors, who did not wish to be seen approaching him in the daytime.

  "Thank you, Tiro," I said. "I hope you will inform the Consul that this is a matter of danger to the state. I would not call upon him at such an hour, unannounced, for anything less serious."

  "He is well aware of that, sir. He will not be long. In the meantime, please refresh yourself while you wait."

  I did as advised. The wine was a fine, mellow old Setinian, far better than I could afford. From nervousness and perplexity I had forgone dinner that evening, so I attacked the snack tray with appetite. Besides boiled quail's eggs there were pastries stuffed with chopped pork and others with honey and nuts. I was finishing off one of the latter when Cicero arrived. I fear I made a poor impression, as I was sucking honey from my fingertips as he came in. I sprang to my feet and made the expected apologies for disturbing him, but he waved them off and indicated I should resume my seat. He sat opposite me, ignoring the table and its temptations.

  "People are always coming to me with tales of danger to the state, Decius Caecilius, but you have rendered loyal service in the past on matters touching state security. Please tell me what you have uncovered."

  So I told him. I spoke of the murders, and of my discovery that the victims were moneylenders, and of Milo's advice that I contact the indebted malcontents who infested Rome. When I get to Catilina, I could see the look of distaste that crossed Cicero's face. All I left out was the part about Aurelia. A man should be allowed a few secrets.

  "Lucius Sergius Catilina!" Cicero said, almost spitting the name. "So it has come to this? He wants a return to the evil days, when Romans killed Romans in the very streets of Rome? I always knew he was pernicious, now I know that he is mad." He looked at me with a frosty smile. "This has been most sagacious, Decius. I know of no other man whose mind works like yours, sifting evidence and placing seemingly disparate facts together to construct a-how shall I put it?-a model of how things might have happened. You should have been a philosopher."

  "I'll accept that as a compliment, Consul," I told him. "Yes, I was stymied when the banker Caius Rabirius told me, at the Egyptian ambassador's, that the mere death of the lender did not cancel the debt. But when I found out that the murders were a show of earnestness, things began to make sense again."

  "But the eques Decimus Flavius, the director of the Reds, was not a moneylender and seems to have no connection with the conspirators. How do you explain his demise?"

  "I have a theory about that, Consul, but I need more proof." Actually, I was almost certain of why Flavius had died, but I also had a terrible feeling that Aurelia was directly involved and I did not want to bring her into it, still hoping to find proof of her innocence. "And you intend to go through with this charade of murdering the physician?" He laughed, something one rarely heard from Cicero. "It is the most insane thing I have ever heard, but then you are dealing with madmen and I suppose mad measures are called for."

  "About Crassus-" I began, but he cut me off.

  "That is mere speculation, Decius. You have incontrovertible evidence of the machinations of Catilina and his cronies, but none at all that Crassus might be involved."

  "But they can have no hope of succeeding unless they are supported by real wealth and a credible army," I pointed out.

  "Decius, these men are mad and desperate enough to think they can get away with it," Cicero insisted. "Their heads are full of airy fantasies and they are totally detached from reality. They are the sort who believe that they deserve high office because of some innate quality apparent only to themselves. They have never faced the fact that the only path to the highest honors is through education, hard soldiering and long, rigorous service, They hope, through desperate action, to have it all in a few days through the mere risk of their worthless lives." He shook his head. "No, Decius, Crassus has everything now. Why would he throw in with such men?"

  "You have said nothing that has not occurred to me," I told him, "but I fear that you misread Crassus."

  "Then bring me proof, Decius. If I had a single shred of evidence, preferably in writing, I would stand before the Senate tomorrow, denouncing Crassus and calling for his exile. But I must have more than your suspicions."

  I was silent. He leaned back in his chair and went on, less severely. "Continue your investigation, Decius. You have rendered invaluable service already, and I must know all you can find out about this conspiracy. Knowing where their two largest arsenals are in the city will be worth half a legion to us when they make their move."

  "I don't yet know when that will be," I said.

  "We have a while yet. Let's get every name we can before I take this to the Senate. In the meantime I will speak to the Praetor Metellus and ensure that your legal position in this will be unassailable."

  "Speaking of praetores," I said, "do you think there is any likelihood that the Praetor Lentulus Sura is really involved?"

  Cicero pondered. "Lentulus Sura is a man of ignoble character. He is one of the few men ever to be elected Consul only to be expelled from the Senate the next year by the Censors. If any man of such rank is involved with the conspirators, it would be Lentulus, but I will not believe it until I see proof."

  Now I remembered something else. It had been Crassus, during his abortive censorship, who had reinstated Lentulus as a member in good standing of the Senate, allowing him to stand for the praetorship elections held the next year. He owed Crassus much. I said nothing of this.

  "You are right to be wary of the names Catilina gave you. Hortalus and Lucullus have become a pair of slothful gardeners, but they would have
nothing to do with this nonsense. If those two and others like them would stay in Rome and help out in the Senate more often, instead of fish-raising, we would not have so much trouble with mediocrities such as fall in with the likes of Catilina." Both Hortalus and Lucullus were inordinately proud of their fishponds, in which they experimented with new types of foreign fish for domestication in Italy. Cicero considered this frivolous and said so, before the Senate.

  "Yet you and Hortalus and Lucullus have been at odds before," I commented.

  "What have my personal likes and dislikes to do with it?" he snapped. "They are both enormously capable men and ought to be here, serving the state, not playing the retired gentleman out in the country."

  "And Julius Caesar?" I asked.

  "There's more to him than most people think, even if he did get elected Pontifex Maximus through the most shameless campaign of bribery I have ever witnessed. He could be involved, but once again I would have to see proof."

  "If you will pardon me, Consul," I said, "you do not seem terribly surprised or shaken by my revelations, which I had thought to be dramatic in the extreme." I was rather disappointed that he had not ordered an emergency meeting of the Senate to denounce the traitors.

  Again that frosty smile. "I have known of Catilina's plottings for two or more years now. Oh, don't look so surprised. A man doesn't reach my position without having a great many sources of information. You are the first to bring me such detailed information, gleaned from Catilina himself, but my secondhand knowledge has been rather good."

  "Who? Or would you rather not say?" I was stunned and a bit crestfallen.

  "No, I know that you would not betray my sources. Fulvia is one."

  "Fulvia!" In the midst of all the male plotting and strutting, I had all but forgotten the women involved, save for Aurelia.

  "Yes, Fulvia. That cretin Curius loves her insanely, and when he isn't threatening her life from jealousy he tells her everything, including two plots by Catilina to murder me. Fulvia is a wild and shameless woman, but she draws the line at murder and she has informed me when I was in danger. She has told me a bit about this scheme of Catilina's, hoping that I will spare Curius when the coup is inevitably crushed."

  "And will you?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "That is not up to me, is it? It will be up to the Senate to decide."

  At the time, I was so agitated that I did not notice that Cicero had said "the Senate," not "the courts." It was a slip weighted with much trouble in days to come.

  "Consul," I said, "granted that this coup has no chance of succeeding, yet even a few men, if they are desperate enough, can wreak fearful carnage in a city as crowded as Rome, and they have supporters in the countryside."

  "That is true. As soon as possible, I want you to go to your kinsman, Metellus Creticus, and alert him. Can you do that without arousing suspicion?." Poor Creticus still waited outside the walls of Rome for permission to celebrate his triumph.

  "Next week the gens Caecilii hold a yearly family religious observance. Since Creticius can't enter the city, it will be held this year at his villa on the Janiculum. I can speak privily with him then."

  "Excellent. Tell him of a planned coup, but no specifics. Tell him to await my summons and be ready to rally his men from wherever they are dispersed awaiting his triumph. I shall have Tiro take the same message to Marcius Rex. Between them, they should be able to summon a full-strength legion on short notice."

  "And your colleague?" I asked.

  "Hibrida is chafing to get away to Macedonia. I'll tell him to go ahead and assemble his men, but march no farther than Picenum. Have no fear, Decius, we'll take care of this sorry business handily."

  I wished that I could be so sanguine. I greatly feared that there would be far more travail out of Catilina's mad plan than he foresaw. "But, Consul, what of Gaul? The Roman authorities and citizens there must be alerted! The Allobroges can spark a tremendous bloodbath there. Our hold on Gaul is not so firm that we cannot be expelled by a mass tribal uprising."

  "Oh, that." Now the smile was frostier than ever. "Fulvia is not my only informant, Decius. I want you to meet the other gentleman with whom I have met this evening."

  I sat mystified while he summoned a slave and sent him to bring this other guest. A few minutes later a tall, bold-faced man entered, a man I recognized.

  " Quaestor Decius Caecilius Metellus," Cicero said formally, "greet the patrician Quintus Fabius Sanga, of Rome and Gaul."

  "We've met," I said. "At the Circus, a few days ago."

  "Then you understand that Fabius Sanga is the patron of the Allobroges?"

  "Yes," I said. Then, to Sanga, "I spoke to your charioteer that day, the boy Dumnorix."

  "Amnorix," Sanga corrected me. "Amnorix, then. He races as Polydoxus. He mentioned that you were the patron of his tribe and I remembered that your family surname was Allobrogicus."

  "Fabius came to me a few days ago with alarming news," Cicero said. "This evening, he came by to bring me up to date."

  "That detestable rogue Umbrenus approached the Allobrogian envoys some time past," Fabius said. "He's the worst sort of publicanus, but he was careful to keep on the good side of the tribes, in Gaul. He knew of the grievances the Allobroges had suffered, and were in Rome to protest. It was just the sort of thing that the malcontents who follow Catilina were looking for. Umbrenus approached them in the Forum and took them to the house of Decimus Brutus. Brutus is away from Rome, but Sempronia entertained them and provided an imposing setting for his proposition. They felt the Gauls would be impressed by one of Rome's great houses, and so they were."

  "He claims to have received their firm support," I said.

  Fabius laced his fingers and leaned forward. "Let me tell you something about Gauls. Like all Keltoi" -he used the Greek word for that race-"they are excitable and they love to boast, but they are not the comic figures we see in the theater. One must never accept their first, emotional reaction to anything as their final feeling on the matter. Given time for reflection, they are usually as sensible and levelheaded as anyone else.

  "When Umbrenus pretended sympathy with their plight, they went into their usual extravagant lamentations of how they have suffered. When he told them that true men will always fight rather than surrender their liberties, they shouted that they would gladly follow any man who promised them the restoration of their ancient freedoms. He told them of Catilina and they declared themselves for him."

  Fabius took a cup from the table and drank. "Of course," he went on, "that was just Gaul talk, but Umbrenus took them at their word. Once they had had a little time to think it over, they grew afraid that they had gotten themselves into something serious. When I returned to Rome, they very sensibly came to me to ask what they should do. I came here, to speak with the Consul."

  "And I advised him to tell the Gauls to play along, to find out who the conspirators are. They told Umbrenus that they would be happier to know that there were important men involved. That turned out to be a mistake, because then the conspirators began to throw in names purely to impress, as they did with you. Your own fa ther's name was one they gave the Gauls."

  I all but choked on my wine. "Father? Well, I suppose barbarians might believe such a thing."

  "They used the name because the Allobroges would know it," Fabius said. "Your father was their recent governor, and a proconsul is the next thing to a god in barbarian lands."

  "I have instructed them," Cicero said, "through Fabius, to demand this: that their kinsmen in Gaul will not rise in support of the rebellion unless they have the signatures and seals of the leading men of the conspiracy on a document that guarantees their own rewards upon success of the revolution."

  I stared at him, aghast. "They absolutely cannot be that stupid!" I protested. "Granted they are unrealistic to the point of dwelling in the midst of fantasy, but even the most amateur of conspirators knows that you never put your name to anything in writing!"

  "And yet they have promised to
deliver this document," Cicero said. "It even makes sense, in a way. They feel that they must have the Gaulish support to succeed, and they know that if they do not succeed, they shall all die. Besides, like most such fools they don't think of themselves as conspirators. They fancy themselves to be patriots. They are going to restore the Republic to its rightful condition."

  "By the time this document reaches Gaul," Fabius said, "the operations in Italy shall have commenced, so what is a bit of written evidence then? The letter is to be delivered in the next few days."

  An awful though occurred to me. "I suppose I will be expected to sign it."

  "What of it?" Cicero said. "I will attest that you acted under my orders."

  "Your pardon, Consul, but if they act before we expect, your assassination will be the signal that the war has commenced."

  "Oh, well, you'll still have Celer to vouch for you, if he lives, and Fabius here. To be safe, the sooner you talk to Creticus, the better. And now, gentlemen, I have much work to do. Please report to me as soon as you have important evidence. When I have that document in my hands, with the names of the leading conspirators upon it, I shall denounce Catilina in the Senate and we shall crush this rebellion before it has a chance to start."

  We took our leave of the Consul and Tiro conducted us to the door. Outside, I spoke to Fabius."

  "I would like a few words with you, Quintus Fabius, if it is convenient."

  "And I with you. Let's walk to the Forum. The moonlight is adequate tonight, and there we can see for a good distance in all directions." I was glad to see that he was being cautious. A full moon made the streets navigable, and once we were in the Forum, it was reflected from the white marble that was everywhere, bathing the whole place in a ghostly luminescence. The Forum is like a place seen in a dream on such nights, We paused before the Rostra. "You first, Decius Caecilius," Fabius said.