Catilina's riddle rsr-3

by Steven Saylor

  'Nonsense! It's a beautiful night. On the far side of the horizon where the sun descended, the god of the warm west winds is stirring in his sleep; he dreams of spring; he sighs, and the grasses sway. Let's take a walk and let Zephyrus dry us with his gentle breath.' He rose and stepped out of the tub. 'Come, join me, Gordianus.'

  'What, without getting dressed? Without even drying ourselves?'

  'Oh, we'll put on our shoes. Here, I've slipped mine on already. And I'll take these towels, in case we need something to sit on.'

  I stepped from the tub. With his toe, Catilina pushed my shoes towards my feet I stepped into them, bent down and drew the straps taut.

  'The hallway is dim,' he said, opening the door, 'but I think I remember the way.' He walked towards the atrium. Naked and wet, my skin hot from the bath, I followed.

  The moon was bright and full, like a lamp set high above the atrium. Its white light shimmered in the pool and lit the columns along one side, casting stark shadows behind them. Thinking we had reached our destination, I stopped and looked down at my naked reflection foreshortened in the black water. The pool was so still that I could see the stars reflected in it. Reflected, too, was the bemused expression on my face — which abruptly gave a start at the sound of the front door creaking open.

  'Catilina!' I said. But he had already slipped outside. All I saw was a naked arm beckoning me.

  'Absurd,' I murmured to myself, but followed.

  Outside, as Catilina had said, a gende zephyr was stirring across the valley. The wind was warm and dry, like a caress against my naked flesh. Ahead of me I saw Catilina, his glistening body as pale and sleek as marble beneath the bright moonlight Clouds of steam rose from his wet, warm flesh, so that he seemed to walk in a mist, with bits of ragged vapour trailing from his broad shoulders and muscular legs. I looked down and saw that my own body emitted the same warm mist. Nearby the oxen lowed in their pen, and a kid bleated sleepily.

  'Catilina, where are we going?' I whispered loudly. He made no answer but walked on, gesturing for me to follow.

  What a strange sight we must have made. I heard a noise from the roof of the stable and saw that the slave posted to keep watch for the night was staring down at us with an odd look on his face, uncertain, I suppose, whether we were naked men or spirits wrapped in vapour.

  'Master?' he called in a low, uncertain voice. I waved, which seemed to satisfy him, though he kept gazing down at us with the same baffled look.

  We walked past the pens, through the vineyards, into the olive orchard. I caught up with Catilina but no longer questioned him. I was too exhilarated by the strangeness of walking naked beneath the moon, by the kiss of the zephyr on my skin, by the dazzling flight of a huge white moth across our path. "This is mad’ I said.

  'Mad? What could be less mad than for a man to walk naked across the face of the earth? What could be more piously in keeping with the will of the gods who made us after their image than to show ourselves to them thus?' We reached the foot of the ridge. Gatilina pressed on, striding carefully but quickly up the steep path. 'When I was young, after a hot bath on a mild night, I used to do this in the city.'

  'In Rome?'

  He laughed, remembering. 'On the Palatine Hill, outside my house. Sometimes alone, sometimes with another. We would take a long walk around the block, naked and steaming, letting the wind dry us. It's delicious, isn't it? Rome is full of naked statues which offend no one's dignity; why should a naked man? You might think it would have caused a scandal, but it didn't. Would you believe that no one ever complained?'

  'Had you not been so good-looking, they might have,' I said.

  'You compliment me, Gordianus.' We had reached the top of the ridge. Catilina dropped the towels and stepped atop one of the tree stumps to take in the view. I looked up at his heaving chest and the muscular arms crossed over it, his flat belly, his sturdy legs and the pendulous sex between.

  'You are resplendent in your nakedness, Catilina!' I said, kughing and trying to catch my breath. I gazed at him openly, and not without envy. 'Truly, like a statue on a pedestal.' I felt a little drunk, not on wine any longer but on moonlight and the peculiar novelty of being naked out of doors. The wind had dried the steam from my body, but I was covered with a fresh sheen of sweat from the exertion of the climb.

  'Do you think so? My lovers have said the same thing.' He looked down at himself) as if his body were familiar but separate from him, just another of the things he owned, like a finely crafted chair or a beautiful painting. 'Impressive for a man of forty-five, I suppose.' He complimented himself without irony or false modesty, but with the matter-of-factness of a man who has inhabited a body for a long time and is neither unduly impressed nor takes it for granted.

  Below us the valley slumbered. I saw no lights from the distant houses of the Claudii, and from my own house only a single lamp was visible, set outside the front door by one of the slaves who must have seen us leave the atrium. Yet how could the world sleep, when the moon was so bright? The Cassian Way was a ribbon of purest alabaster skirting the base of the mountain. The roof of the house seemed to be made of tiles that glowed with a pale blue light. And when the zephyr sighed through the olive orchard below us, the rustling leaves shimmered black and silver. An owl hooted from a nearby tree.

  Catilina sighed. 'I have never stinted myself of the pleasures that my body could take, nor stinted others of the pleasures it could give. Such a simple principle by which to live, don't you think? Yet even that has been turned against me by my enemies, twisted into something ugly and depraved. You were in the city during the final days of the campaign. You must have heard how they vilified me. The same as last year, but worse. Last year Cicero and his scheming brother Quintus tasted my blood; this year nothing would satisfy them but to tear out my heart and eat it.'

  Catilina drew himself up and gazed down at the valley. When I had said he looked like a statue on a pedestal, I had meant it half in jest, but half in earnest. In his marmoreal nakedness, wearing a stern face, he might have been the image of a god. Not the gods of boyhood, Mercury or Apollo; Vulcan perhaps, or more likely Jupiter, master of order and shaper of the greater destinies, gazing firmly down from Olympus.

  'If you had a beard, you'd look like Jupiter,' I said.

  The thought amused him. He thrust his right arm stiffly before him, palm down, and spread his fingers. 'If only I could cast lightning bolts, like Jupiter.' He gazed at the back of his hand. 'Cicero can — did you know that? Lightning bolts emanate from his fingers. A kind of lightning, anyway. He points at the mob in the Forum; sparks gather at his fingertips and flash into blue flame. He shoots shafts of lightning straight into their eyes and ears, blinding them to the truth, taming them deaf to reason.' Catilina thrust out his arm again and pointed down with his forefinger, miming the action. 'Cicero's forefinger: the Vestal Virgins must be protected from Catilina! Crack! The lightning strikes, the voters quiver with superstitious awe and revulsion. His middle finger: Catilina seduces young men! The lightning flashes, the voters grimace with distaste — and perhaps a little jealousy? His next finger: Catilina pimps for rich matrons! The voters howl in disgust. His little finger, in the name of serving Sulla, Catilina murdered good citizens and raped their wives and children! The voters tremble with loathing. And on his other hand — well, with his other hand, he's busy masturbating, isn't he?'

  I laughed out loud. Catilina grunted and began to laugh as well, a rich, good-natured laugh, I thought at first, until a taint of bitterness seemed to swallow it up before it had run its course.

  'He has destroyed me with lies and distortions, and the mob acclaims him as the First Citizen in the land. Still, I had rather be Catilina than Cicero,' he said, studying his hand for a moment and then dropping his arm to his side. 'What about you, Gordianus?'

  'What, had I rather be myself than Cicero?'

  'No! Which would you choose to be: Cicero or Catilina?'

  'An odd question.'

  'An excell
ent question.'

  'You're forever playing games, Catilina.'

  'And you are forever avoiding them. Do you fear the element of chance? Must you always know the outcome ahead of time? Then choose to be Cicero!' He gazed down at me. Pockets of shadow obscured his eyes, but his lips had a quizzical twist. 'Do you know what I think? I think it would frighten you to be Catilina.' He jumped down from the stump. He picked up a broad towel, spread it on the ground and lay down on it, joining his hands beneath his head and gazing up at the moon.

  'Lie down beside me, Gordianus.'

  I hesitated.

  'Come, join me. Gaze up at the face of the moon. You call your daughter Diana, don't you, after the goddess of the moon? Look up at her face with me.'

  I lay down beside him, acutely aware again of my nakedness as I was bathed in bright moonlight 'Diana is short for Gordiana,' I explained.

  ‘Vaguely impious, even so, to call a child by a goddess's name,' said Catilina. ‘But fitting, I suppose. Diana, patron goddess of the plebeians, who inspired the Sabine women in their revolt. Diana, goddess of fertility and birth, dweller in mountains and woods, lover of all wild things. One tends to forget her in the city, just as one forgets the moon there amid so many lamps. She's stronger here. Her light bathes all the world with its glow. Lie here and worship her with me for a while.'

  We lay in silence. Except for the occasional rustling of leaves and the hooting of the owl, the world was so quiet that I could hear my own heartbeat and Catilina's breathing beside me. After a while he said, 'May I speak with you frankly?'

  I smiled. 'I doubt that I could stop you.'

  'We seem to share the same taste in women, Gordianus. Your wife Bethesda is quite spectacular; she reminds me more than a little of my own Aurelia. Their beauty is much alike, as is their haughtiness, their mysteriousness. But it seems that we do not share the same taste in young men.'

  'Apparently not.'

  'Yet I can't imagine how anyone could fail to find Tongilius beautiful, even Cicero. His green eyes, the way his hair sweeps back from his forehead—'

  'Tongilius is beautiful,' I acknowledged.

  'Yet you do not desire him?'

  'That would hardly be proper, would it, since I am your host and Tongilius is your companion?'

  'Now who plays games with words, Gordianus? My point is this: if you have an eye for beauty, why do you not act on it? How can you resist?'

  I laughed softly. 'First of all, Catilina, like many unusually good-looking men and women who encounter constant temptation, you seem to think such opportunities are as rampant for others as for yourself'

  'Do you really underestimate yourself so ludicrously, Gordianus? Tongilius, for one, finds you quite attractive. He tells me so.'

  At this I felt an unexpected and dubious quiver of gratification. 'You're joking, Catilina. Tongilius would never have told you such a thing. How could the subject have ever arisen?'

  'It seems a quite natural subject to me. Unless they're talking about politics, what else do people talk about, except the relative attractiveness and desirability of other people? Indeed, what else is there to talk about?'

  'Catilina, you are incorrigible.'

  'No, insatiable perhaps, but eminendy corrigible. I am always ready to learn something new and to be corrected when I'm mistaken. You'd do well to follow my example, Gordianus. In this matter, as in others.'

  'What matter?'

  'The unreasonable restraint you show in your relationships with beautiful young men.'

  'Catilina, you mustn't try to corrupt me! I'm unworthy of your efforts!'

  'Nonsense, I find you entirely worthy.' 'I suppose I should be flattered?' 'No, grateful and attentive.'

  I laughed deep in my throat, surprised at how much I was enjoying this banter between us. It was the spell cast by the full moon, of course, looming huge and white above us, almost close enough to touch. It was my own nakedness, and the moth which had flitted across our path, and Catilina's indisputable charm that made it possible to speak of things that never were or would be.

  'Do you know what I think, Gordianus? I think we are opposites in many ways, and yet complementary. Caelius says that you have quite a reputation for extracting the truth from others, that you're something of a legend that way; men naturally want to empty their hearts to you. My gift is the same, yet different. I see into other men's hearts, into the places where they never look, and it's ‘ who tell them what resides there. Do you know what I see in your heart about this matter?'

  "This matter, which fascinates you more than it does me?'

  'I think not. I see inside you an extraordinary moral character, a man very much out of step with the world in which he lives. "We both know the Roman way of sexuality: power is everything; even more important than pleasure. Indeed, pleasure as an end in itself is something alien to a good Roman — decadent, Eastern, a vice of the Egyptians and the Greeks. Power rules, and power means penetration. Men possess that power, women do not. Men rule Rome and have made it what it is: an empire bent on conquering all the world, penetrating and subduing every other nation and race.'

  "This seems far from the subject of lust.'

  'Not at all. In such a world the natural proclivities of love are bent; pleasure bows to power. Everything is reduced to penetrating or being penetrated. How simple-minded, how much more suitable to the mechanics of your water mill than the complexities of the human spirit, but there you have it. Penetrate or be penetrated: women have no option in this matter and are thus permanently reduced to an inferior status. On the other hand, any man who submits to being penetrated by another man relinquishes his power and is thought to be no better than a woman, or at least so goes the consensus, though we all know that behind closed doors men tend to do whatever they wish, compelled more by pleasure than prestige. Thus all that gossip about Caesar in his younger days when he played catamite to King Nicomedes of Bithynia — such un-Roman behaviour! But of course

  Caesar was young and virile, Nicomedes exuded an Eastern sensuality, and who really cares what they did, except a political manipulator of Cicero's stripe, who might be able to make a campaign issue of it — a matter of faulty character and judgment, they call it. Illicit sex brings down the wrath of the gods — just ask Cato — and if a Roman like Caesar allows himself to be ploughed in his youth, who knows what famines and military catastrophes might result!

  'The Greeks allow for such passions, of course, but only, ostensibly, between the old and the young; it is suitable and proper for a young man to submit to his mentor, given the correct circumstances and decorum Still, you see, the balance of power depends on the role to be played. Naturally, there must always be exceptions, behind closed doors, that do not fit the model of the masterly mentor and the docile protege.

  'We Romans, alas, do not even have a model to depart from. We scorn the Greeks, ridiculing their obsessions with philosophy and athletics. Lacking their time-honoured traditions, in matters of vice we are left to our own devices. Mostly, we take horrendous advantage of our slaves, male and female alike. Such passion has no honour, and is thus unfettered and untempered by any rules of dignity or decorum, much less restrained by law. The excesses of the Romans in exploiting their human tools are literally without limit. Slave girls are commonly raped against their will, slave boys are stripped of all their dignity and exploited just as rapaciously. They are treated with a degree of contempt that most men would not inflict upon a dog; indeed, a well-trained dog costs considerably more than a reasonably pretty boy or girl at the market.

  'In such a world passion must invariably mean degradation for someone — or so the consensus decrees. So a man like Gordianus the Finder, this strangely moral being, finds other ways to shape his longings. Sex he must have, of course; in that way he is like every other man. But even so he is unconventional: he devotes himself to a slave woman, dotes on her beauty, indulges her haughtiness, and ultimately makes her his wife, thus elevating her rather than degrading her. His beha
viour is almost a satire upon the Roman dictum to choose a wife for her status and a whore for her beauty. So far as anyone knows, he is more faithful to his wife than ninety-nine out of a hundred of his countrymen are to theirs. A love match, that rarest of Roman marriages!

  'As for the pleasure to be had with young men, he will not approach the matter at all. Or rather, he skirts it. He has top much respect for them, whether citizen or slave, to blithely follow the formula that inevitably elevates one man and degrades the other. He prefers the role of chaste mentor, instead. This behaviour is rare but not unheard of; I have seen it before and recognize it in you. Gordianus does not exploit and rape his slaves. Nor does he seek out an uncertain middle ground with a companion of his own station. He teaches; he nurtures and dotes; he elevates. He makes sentimentality a fetish; his gestures are grandiose. He goes so far as to adopt a street urchin and a slave boy and to make these young men his heirs. Such an unconventional family! And while he remains exquisitely sensitive to the beauties of young men, he sees, but he does not touch. What reticence, more given to compassion than passion! He is a man out of step with a world that encourages the strong to devour the weak, that rewards cruelty and punishes kindness, that measures manhood by a man's will to dominate other men, women, children, and slaves, the more ruthlessly the better. He is a stranger fellow than ever Catilina was!'

  He fell silent. We lay next to each other, equally naked beneath the bright moon. 'And Catilina,' I said, my voice strange in my ears because Catilina's words had made everything seem strange, 'how does he fit into such a world?'

  'Like Gordianus, Catilina makes his own rules, to suit himself.'

  We lay on the hill, musing and amusing ourselves long into the night.

  As sometimes happens when the body has been heated by a bath, then cools, and then exerts itself again after an already strenuous day, I fell asleep without meaning to. Fortunately, the night remained mild and there was no morning chill. I awoke before cockcrow. The towel had been folded over me like a coverlet. Catilina was gone.