SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy

by John Maddox Roberts

  First, though, we would conquer Parthia. If only we had known at the time what a struggle that would entail.

  But I was not thinking of these things when I presented myself at the door of Orestilla’s house. I was thinking of Aurelia. I had been doing far too much of that lately. So much so that, when the janitor admitted me, I thought that it was Aurelia whom I saw coming to greet me, but I was mistaken. The woman crossing the atrium was her mother, Orestilla. She was still a great beauty, and with none of Au-relia’s abstracted air. For the moment, I could well sympathize with Catilina. I might have murdered a son or two myself for such a woman.

  “Quaestor Metellus, welcome to my house.”Her smile was dazzling and she took my hands in both of hers. She was constructed just like her daughter, with a few extra pounds that did nothing to distract from her beauty. “Did you bring any friends?”

  I looked around to make sure. “No. Should I have?”

  “It’s just that everyone else this evening has shown up with someone in tow, so we’re having to move the dining tables and couches out to the peristylium. Our little dinner reception has turned into a minor banquet. It will be a fine affair, but please forgive me if things don’t happen exactly according to schedule.”She was a woman of infectious gaiety, as her daughter was one of brooding melancholy.

  “I promise only to be overwhelmed by your hospitality and your equally renowned beauty. Speaking of which, that is a most spectacular gown.”She was wearing a sheer stola made of what appeared to be pure silk, emerald-green in color. The thought of its cost was unsettling.

  “Isn’t it amazing? It’s a gift from our guest of honor. I never expected anything so splendid. He brought another for Aurelia. She’s off somewhere trying hers on and admiring her reflection, no doubt. Come along, everybody’s out in the peristylium and getting in the way while the house slaves are trying to set up.”She took my hand and all but towed me out into the open colonnade. Her peristylium had an unusually large compluvium, transforming it into a virtual courtyard. Instead of the usual central pool, it had a grated drain running around the base of the columns, making it possible to use the enclosure for large parties such as this one. There were at least thirty people there already, and it seemed that more were to arrive. They stood about on a floor of exquisite mosaic. Mosaic floors in private houses were still rather new in Rome, except for the tessellated kind made of squares and rectangles of colored marble, making abstract designs. This was a genuine picture-mosaic, made of tiny bits of colored stone, glass and even fragments colored with gold or silver leaf. It depicted a pastoral scene of gods and goddesses, nymphs, satyrs, centaurs and such amid vines and cedar-clad hills. Gods and fabulous creatures danced, feasted and flirted among mortal shepherds and the occasional hero. Quite aside from its breathtaking beauty and artistry, the design was perfect for an area intended for entertainment and I strongly suspected that Orestilla had deliberately arranged for the unexpected guests so that she could get everyone out here to admire her mosaic.

  The evening was wonderfully warm and clear for October, almost like a fine summer evening. There was still plenty of light, because it was still considered disgraceful for an entertainment to run on after dark, so we usually got started during the hours of daylight. As for calling it quits with the onset of darkness, nobody paid any attention to that nonsense anymore.

  I saw that all the most beautiful, scandalous and best-bred ladies were there: Sempronia, Fulvia, Orestilla herself, of course, Clodia and a few others who were quite famous at the time but whose names have faded from my memory. Aurelia had not made her appearance yet.

  The men were as distinguished, by notoriety if not by beauty. Catilina and Curius were there, and Lisas, the Egyptian ambassador. Crassus had not arrived yet, but Caesar was there, for populares and optimates mingled freely at this sort of affair. He had won a praetorship for the next year and was therefore a bit more aloof than when actually standing for election. He was chatting amiably with Catilina. They were both patricians, after all, and that was a more binding connection than mere political convenience. Indeed, except on the floor of the Senate and on the public speaking platform, it was very difficult to tell one party from the other. Politicians always denied belonging to any faction at all, claiming to act only from disinterested motives of statesmanship. It was their enemies who belonged to parties, they claimed.

  There were three men dressed in exotic garb: short jackets with long sleeves, trousers and soft boots. These were the Parthians. As heirs to the Persian empire, they claimed to be civilized and we humored them, as if people who wore trousers could be considered anything but barbarians. They also wore headgear indoors, something done by no Roman except the Flamen Dialis.

  I forgot about them when Aurelia appeared. She wore a gown like her mother’s, but hers was of flame-colored silk. The material was so thin that it clung when she moved and floated free when she was still. To my great amazement and delight, she ignored the other guests and came to me first. We exchanged formal greetings and then got down to serious dalliance.

  “The ambassador’s gift is most becoming on you,” I said.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she said, her eyes alight. “I’m so glad I got the red one. It suits my coloring much better than the green would have.”

  “I can only agree.”

  “Mother looks wonderful in hers, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, but not as stunning as you.”I was enjoying this.

  “That’s because she hasn’t yet realized the possibilities of the material.”She smoothed the silk downward, drawing it taut. “For instance, she’s wearing a strophium and subli-gaculum under hers. Well, I suppose when I’m her age I’ll need a strophium too, but what’s wonderful about a pure silk stola is that it combines the advantages of being decently clad with those of being naked.”

  I cleared my throat needlessly. “Truly, a marvelous fabric.

  “I hear that you will be captain of the Suburans the day after tomorrow. How exciting.”

  “Well, one must uphold the honor of the district. I am amazed that you’ve heard about it so soon. I only accepted the honor yesterday evening.”

  “It’s all over the city. I think it’s terribly brave.”Her look of adoration almost made up for my fear.

  “Oh, the danger is greatly exaggerated. I’m looking forward to it.”I could lie with the best of them, in my youth.

  “I’ll be watching,” she promised. “From a safe spot. Now, have you met our guests of honor? I suppose you haven’t, the way Mother’s been fluttering about. Come along with me.”She took my hand and towed me to the group of Parthians. “Ambassador, this is the Quaestor Decius Caeci-lius Metellus the Younger. Decius, his Excellency, the ambassador Surena.”

  The Parthian smiled and bowed slightly, his fingertips extended and touching his chest, then his lips and brow. He wore a pointed chin-beard and his long hair was dressed in scented, oily ringlets. The Parthians followed the disgusting Oriental practice of wearing cosmetics. His face was dusted with white powder, with scarlet rouge on lips and cheeks. His eyebrows had been augmented by kohl into a single, black line, high-arched over the eyes and drawn down into a point over the bridge of the nose, so that they resembled a gull in flight, as seen from a distance. More kohl outlined his large, brown eyes. What a prize fop, I thought.

  “I bring the greetings of King Phraates,” he said. It was a practiced formula and his accent indicated that he was not comfortable with Latin.

  “And the Senate and People of Rome extended their warmest greetings to his envoys,” I said in Greek, which was spoken everywhere in the East and which, like all wellborn Romans, I was forced to learn in childhood. I longed for the day when we would be able to beat the Greek out of these barbarians and teach them a decent language.

  “I think I hear Crassus arriving,” Aurelia said. “Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen.”I was grieved to see her go, but it gave me an opportunity to admire her shapely bottom as the silk gown performe
d exactly as she had indicated.

  Surena did not seem to be as enthralled with the sight, but then easterners have strange tastes. “Wonderful stuff, silk,” I muttered. Surena’s eyes brightened within their rings of kohl. Apparently he liked silk better than what it contained.

  “It is the gift of the gods. You must come to Parthia some time, and see the great silk bazaar at Ecbatana. It arrives by the camel-load from the Far East.”

  I was always intrigued by tales from far places. “Are the caravans manned by the Seres?”

  He shook his head. “No one in the West has ever seen those people. The silk is many months, even years on the trails before it arrives in Ecbatana. It is traded from one caravan to another and as far as I know nobody has ever traveled the entire route. The Seres are said to be a small, yellow people with tilted eyes, but that could be fable.”

  “And what is the origin of silk?” I asked him. “One hears the most unlikely theories.”

  “Then you hear as much as we do,” he admitted. “Some think it comes from a plant, like flax, others say that it is spun by giant, domesticated spiders. There is a belief that it is hair from the heads of women, which seems most unlikely, and some maintain that it is produced by tiny worms that eat the leaves of the mulberry bush. Whichever, it makes the lightest, the strongest, the most beautiful fabric in the world.”He was wearing a good deal of it himself. “I delivered many bolts, a present from my king, to your General Pompey when we concluded our alliance against Mithridates and Tigranes.”

  “You were acting as envoy at that time?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, smiling, “as general of the Parthian forces.”

  The idea of this overdressed, bedaubed, effeminate foreigner leading an army seemed faintly ludicrous and I assumed that, as in so many monarchies, he received rank through his family relationship to the king. I did not know, of course, that I was speaking to the most powerful man in the Parthian empire. The kings of Parthia were just figureheads selected by the great families of Scythian descent, of which the house of Surena was the greatest. Ten years after this evening, he was to show Crassus and Rome that silk and cosmetics had done nothing to soften Parthia’s warlike ferocity.

  Then Aurelia and Orestilla arrived, towing Crassus. He exchanged fulsome greetings with the ambassador and, as soon as he could, took me aside. The recent marriage alliance of our families had made him benevolent toward me. Temporarily, at any rate.

  “Decius, assure your father that he has my support for next year’s censorship election,” he said.

  “He will rejoice to know it,” I told him. “Your support is as good as an assurance of election.”This was not much of an exaggeration.

  “Getting elected is only the half of it,” he reminded me. “I hope he has better luck in his colleague than I did.”Two years before, Crassus had had a notably unsuccessful censorship. He and his colleague, the great Catulus, could agree on nothing and each had undone the other’s work. Finally, they had both abdicated without even completing the census of citizens, which was their primary duty in office.

  “You know my father,” I said. “He gets along with nearly everybody. He wants Hortalus to come out of retirement and stand for Censor. They would work well together, but Hortalus has lost his taste for public office since Cicero has risen so high.”

  “I’ll speak with Hortalus,” Crassus assured me. “He’ll never be able to resist wearing the toga praetexta one more time, if he can be assured of working with a co-operative colleague.”

  “That would be a great favor, sir,” I said.

  He leaned close. “Can you believe these Parthians? They’re more contemptible than the Egyptians! Mark me, Decius, as soon as they give us an excuse, I’m going to demand a command against that nation if I have to pay for the whole campaign myself. I’ll be looking for legates then. It’ll be a good place for a young man to make his military reputation.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind, and I’m honored by the offer.”Inwardly, I made a vow to have nothing to do with the East, nor any military adventure led by Crassus, a decision I have never regretted.

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good lad. And good luck at the festival.”

  No sooner had Crassus left my side than Catilina sought me out. “Decius, I heard about your captainship of the Subura. Congratulations!”

  “Lucius, these constant reminders of my fate are stealing the pleasure from my evening.”

  He grinned and chuckled. “Think it might get rough, eh? But that’s the fun of it. Excitement and honor, that’s what life is all about.”And there you have Lucius Sergius Catilina: a big twelve-year-old boy who never grew up. Young Marcus Antonius was to become the same sort of man. The two had many qualities in common.

  “Have you ever acted in that capacity?” I asked.

  “Of course. I captained the Via Sacra when I was about your age. That was in the consulate of Carbo and Cinna. I was laid up in bed for a month afterward, but the glory was worth it.”

  “As it occurs, I have a special hazard this year,” I pointed out.

  “Right. Clodius represents the Via Sacra this year. That little—” He looked around. “Clodia’s not within hearing, is she? I’ll never understand how a woman like that could be sister to a slimy little reptile like Publius.”He lowered his voice, conspiratorially. “Look, Decius, I’m going to assign a few of my lads to look out for you. Not all of them live in the Subura, but who’s to know, eh?”

  I was willing to trust in the protection of my neighbors, but anything that might get me closer to Catilina’s doings would be welcome. “Thank you. Ordinarily, it would just be a roughhouse, but I suspect that Publius and his boys may take the opportunity to murder me.”

  “Just what I was thinking. Never fear, my men will watch out for you. And”—he paused dramatically—”after the festival, I am holding a little get-together here. Only the really important men to attend, if you get my meaning. It’ll mean great things for your future, I can promise you.”

  This was what I had been hoping for. “If I am in any shape to go anywhere at all, I shall be here without fail.”

  “Good, good. And”—he all but nudged me in the side— “Aurelia’s quite taken with you. And that, in turn, pleases Orestilla no end.”At that moment, the lady in question appeared at his side and he placed an arm around her shoulders, a sight that would have been shocking in a less sophisticated gathering. At this time, about the only thing that was still regarded as perverted was a public display of affection toward one’s wife. It was not as if they were out on a street or in the Forum, but even at a gathering like this it was rather daring. Cato would have called for his exile. Somehow, I found this simple gesture almost ennobling. Even the worst of men have their little affections and redeeming loves, and Sergius Catilina was far from the worst of men, despite what was said about him later.

  “We are finally set up,” Orestilla told us, slipping an arm around his substantial waist. “Come and let’s get dinner started, everyone is starving.”

  Through the meal, 1 wondered whether I was just kindly disposed toward Catilina because of what he had said about Aurelia. Could he just be dangling her before me as bait? I did not want to think so, but the very fact that I was willing his words to be true made my own judgment suspect. I could take little pleasure in the banquet. I was couched close enough to a Parthian to smell his perfume, which ruined my appetite, and I dared not drink any wine, since I had to be ready for the ordeal of the festival in two days’ time. The conversation was uninspiring as well, for I remember little of it, even though I was sober.

  When the dinner was over and the hired acrobats were performing their contortions, I rose from the table and took a walk in the garden, which was rather large for a house within the city walls. To take best advantage of the limited space, it was a labyrinth of hedges high enough to block the sight of nearby buildings, so that one could wander among the plantings and imagine that they were on the grounds of a country estate.
Here and there, lamps and small torches provided illumination and fountains played musically in little fishponds.

  For the moment, all was serene. Intrigues and horse festivals seemed far away. In the dark nooks and on the other sides of hedges, I could hear whisperings and other, more intimate sounds. I had not been the only one to steal away from the party for a bit of privacy. A voice called my name quietly and I turned to see a shadowy form with a dim light shining behind it.

  “Aurelia?” I said, my mouth gone dry. She came closer until I could feel the warmth from her body.

  “I’m so glad I found you here,” she said, barely whispering. “I wasn’t expecting such a crowd tonight and I thought we would have some time together. I have to go back in a few minutes, but you’ll be here after the festival, won’t you? Sergius said you would.”

  “Depending upon my condition,” I said. I desperately wanted her to stay. “Surely, you don’t have to—”

  She came even closer. “Oh, I am sure you will come through it gloriously! Just stay behind after everyone else returns home two nights from now, and—then I can treat you as a hero should be treated.”

  “If I am going to emerge from the festival a hero,” I said, “then perhaps you could lend me some more of your luck.”

  She came into my arms and pressed herself against me, her arms winding around my neck and pulling my head down, first kissing me, then drawing my face into the valley between her breasts. My hands slid over her and the silken gown was like a coating of oil. Voluptuous as she was, her flesh was as firm as that of a young racehorse. My hands tested the firmness of her thighs and buttocks, the rocklike points of her nipples as her tongue played with mine. Then, much too soon, she broke away.

  “I must go back. Later, Decius. In two nights, we will have all the time we need.”Then she turned and was gone.