A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

by Taylor Caldwell

  “The boy is too wise for his years,” said Archias. “It is not the kind of wisdom which is reassuring, however. It is rather a shrewdness, an ability to use others, a cunning understanding of the weaknesses of those about him. He will exploit his fellows when he is a man.”

  But Julius was already gayly exploiting his fellows, and most particularly Marcus.

  When the boys walked to school together and Marcus remarked on an aspect of the city or on a passing face, Julius had a witticism at once.

  One day the child said to Marcus while they were halting to watch a flight of doves around a statue, “You should not be so afraid of Lucius.”

  “I am not afraid of him,” said Marcus with vexation. “I am just afraid of what he is.”

  “What is he?” Julius asked, intrigued.

  But Marcus could not explain. “Look at those doves circling the statue’s head. It is Pollux, is it not? Why are they congregating there?”

  “It is their latrine,” said Julius, and made an obscene sound and Marcus found himself laughing. “That is irreverent, Julius,” he said.

  “It is true, however,” said Julius. “Is truth always irreverent?”

  Marcus thought and then said with wryness, “Very often, it seems.”

  Julius skipped ahead of him for a moment, then paused to make the captivating obscene sound again, to the amusement of some hurrying men. It was late December now, and the time of the Saturnalia, and the weather was cold. Waiting for Marcus, Julius performed a dexterous dance on the pavement, and more men stopped to watch. Marcus was embarrassed. He thought that Julius’ merry face was old in appearance for all the childish features. It had a certain cunning sharpness such as street boys have, a certain satyrism and wildness which made Marcus think of Pan. Then as Marcus came abreast of him, Julius suddenly changed and took his hand like a little boy.

  “I like you,” he said, and smiled up at the older boy with an artless glance. “I think,” said Julius, kicking at a slinking street dog, “that you are not quite such a fool as Lucius thinks you are.”

  “I do not care what Lucius thinks,” said Marcus, coldly. He stopped to fasten Julius’ cloak with brotherly hands. The wind was bright and strong.

  “Yes, you do,” said Julius, lifting his chin to facilitate Marcus’ efforts. “You do not know what he thinks and that makes you afraid. But I know what he thinks!”

  “What does he think?”

  Julius laughed. “He hates you because he knows what you are.”

  “And what am I, Julius?”

  “I like you,” said Julius, evasively. “How much money do you have in your purse today?”

  Once in school Julius forgot Marcus until recess, when the vendor arrived. He had especially fine treats in honor of the coming holiday, such as cakes in the shapes of fauns and centaurs with raisins for eyes. There were also little hot meat pies cut in phallic forms which were supposed to be amusing. Marcus bought some of the dainties for himself and Julius. All the boys were standing before the school on the pavement, which was not crowded at this hour, and Lucius was at a distance with his particular cronies. His beautiful face was illuminated by the strong winter sun. He turned his head and saw Marcus putting an extra pastry into Julius’ voracious hands. He sauntered toward the two.

  “How now, Julius,” he said in his charming and lazy voice, “are you so stricken by poverty that you can bear to receive gifts from an inferior?”

  Julius was afraid that Marcus would snatch away the treasure, and so he said impudently, “What is an inferior? One who has no money.”

  Lucius’ blue eyes flashed dangerously, but laughing he struck down Julius’ hand so that the dainty fell to the rushing gutter, and then he hit Julius’ dark little face with a casual viciousness. Julius did not mind the blow but he did mind the loss of his pie. Losing his quick temper he did the incredible. He kicked Lucius in the shin.

  Amazed, the other boys gathered around. No one had ever objected to Lucius’ easy cruelty before, and certainly not the besotted Julius. Lucius could not believe it for a moment. He stood while his dark curls, touched with ruddy shadows, were ruffled by the wind. Then, without visible effort, he snatched Julius in his hands and threw the little boy on the pavement and kicked him in the side. Julius, considerably hurt, howled in pain. Lucius, laughing now, lifted his foot again.

  “Stop,” said Marcus. His face had turned very white and he involuntarily clenched his hands.

  Lucius looked at him disbelievingly. “You will stop me?” he said with contempt.

  “Yes,” said Marcus, and put himself between Lucius and his victim.

  Lucius actually stepped back, but it was with astonishment. He was older and taller and heavier than the seemingly frail Marcus, and he was an expert boxer.

  “You?” he exclaimed.

  “I,” said Marcus. He could feel his heart beating with outrage and a sudden loathing for this handsome boy with the wicked and beautiful face. Never before had he wanted to strike anyone. All the weeks of frustration and pain and humiliation gathered like a knot of iron in his chest, hotly pulsing.

  Lucius looked about at his fellows and raised his eyebrows. “This baseborn dog dares to defy me,” he said, and then moving like the flash of a sword he was upon Marcus without the preliminary and honorable challenge. He struck one foul blow and Marcus bent over suddenly and gasped for air and felt the exploding anguish in his bowels. Lucius cried out with pleasure, and was on the other boy before he could recover.

  Forgetting honorable fighting because of his pain and his sudden hatred and detestation, Marcus grasped Lucius to him and bit his neck deeply. Lucius reared back. Then Marcus seized his ears in his hands and pulled hard and fiercely. Instinctively he brought up his knee and gouged Lucius in the groin. Lucius staggered. Again, Marcus gouged him, then as Lucius fell back he kicked him surely and with all his strength in the delicate spot. Lucius collapsed on the ground. The boys raised a great shout. “Foul fighting!” they cried.

  “You did not think it foul when he attacked me foully!” Marcus cried back. He stood over the writhing Lucius and so incited was he that no boy approached him. But he made no sound. Pilo, hearing the commotion, hurried outside, and when he saw Lucius and Marcus above him he stopped short in stupefaction. Julius ran to him.

  “Lucius hit me and kicked me when I was lying down!” he said. “And I am only a little boy!”

  “Foul,” said the other boys. “Marcus gouged Lucius foully. It was not Roman.”

  Pilo seized Marcus by the arm and dragged him inside the school. The other boys followed, two supporting the silent Lucius. Pilo thrust Marcus before him and addressed the boys in a shaking voice.

  “The honor of the school has been violated,” he began.

  “Lucius kicked me foully,” said Julius from the throng.

  “Silence,” Pilo commanded.

  “He kicked me!” shouted Julius, prancing forward and holding his side pathetically. “As if I were a dog.”

  Pilo breathed heavily, his hand grasping Marcus’ shoulder. Marcus was trembling, but again it was with loathing that he looked at Lucius. “You must have provoked your friend,” said Pilo to Julius, “beyond endurance. Besides, you are lying, my child.”

  “I never lie!” protested Julius, who usually lied.

  Pilo ignored him. He looked at the other boys, who were crowding eagerly toward him. “What is the truth?” he said.

  One of Lucius’ most devoted friends, and an older boy, took it upon himself to enlighten the teacher. “Julius was impudent to Lucius, and Lucius punished him with a slap. Julius fell. Lucius did not kick him. And then—”

  Julius screamed, beating his breast with his small fists in his rage, “Lucius kicked me! And then he hit Marcus without challenge and foully, because Marcus told him to stop doing it. And then Marcus protected himself!”

  “Is that the truth?” asked Pilo of the others.

  It was Lucius who spoke, in a sick voice. “No, it is a lie.”


  The boys closed their mouths and could not look at each other. They let their heads drop, and their faces reddened. Before honor, they loved Lucius who loved no one.

  Pilo understood instantly. He was in a quandary. He loved the popular Lucius with his beautiful face and voice and Apollonian charm. He dared not question Marcus because Marcus would tell the truth. He shook the boy helplessly while he considered. If he punished Marcus there would be no reprisals. Marcus was no tale-bearer.

  It did not make Pilo very happy to do as he did in all expediency. He thrashed Marcus before the class with utmost severity, and the boy took the lashing of the whip in utter silence, staring before him. Lucius watched with delight, laughing silently so that all his fine teeth were visible.

  The boys were ashamed. When Marcus returned to his bench they could not raise their eyes to his face. But they loved Lucius. They hastily opened their books and engrossed themselves in study.

  Marcus and Julius walked home together as usual, and each step caused Marcus to wince. Julius held his champion’s hand like a trusting little brother. “I hate Lucius now,” he said with vehemence. “I will never like him again.”

  “Do not be too sure,” said Marcus, who had learned even more painful lessons during those weeks.

  Julius stamped angrily. “I will never like him again.”

  “You will not speak of this at home,” said Marcus, sternly. “You will forget it.”

  Of course, Julius told his mother at once, and Aurelia went immediately to Helvia. “Lucius’ mother is my best friend,” said the stout little lady in outrage, “but Lucius never entranced me as he entrances others.”

  Helvia sent for Marcus to come to the women’s quarters, and the boy entered and saw Aurelia and colored angrily. “Remove your tunic,” said Helvia. Marcus, looking at Aurelia with fresh anger, removed his tunic and Helvia inspected the welts on his young body. She called to a slave for hot water and ointments. With no comment she rubbed the pungent oils into the welts, after bathing them until they were fiery. Then she said, “You will not return to that school.”

  Marcus was greatly disturbed. “Mother,” he pleaded, “that will be shameful of me. The other boys will laugh at me for a coward, believing I came whining to you like a pampered infant.”

  Helvia considered, her teeth worrying her ripe under lip. She looked at her friend, Aurelia. Aurelia was nodding with approval. “He speaks as a Roman,” she said. “You can be proud of him, Helvia.”

  “I was always proud of him,” said Helvia, to Marcus’ surprise. She smiled at her son and pushed his shoulder fondly. “I am glad that you fought Lucius and overcame him, and I am proud even of your welts which you received in silence and in honor and in the defense of one younger and weaker.”

  “Lucius is larger and older,” said Aurelia. “It is not foul to defend yourself foully against a foul man, if only foulness is the answer and the only possible way.”

  “Lucius is not truly a Roman in spirit,” said Helvia.

  “But you will not speak of it to anyone?” Marcus said to his mother as he carefully resumed his tunic.

  “To no one,” Helvia promised. She smiled again at her son, and her handsome face shone.

  “And I will thrash Julius if he utters another word,” said Aurelia. She had thought Helvia unfortunate in her older son, who was so quiet. She had believed him girlish. Yet he had not only defended her petted Julius, who was her delight and pride, but he had vanquished the haughty Lucius whom she disliked. She fished at a golden chain about her short and rosy neck and pulled up a medal engraved with the likeness of Pallas Athene from her warm bosom.

  “The goddess of wisdom and law,” she said. “This medal represents her as she appears in the Parthenon in Athens. You are worthy of it, Marcus.” And she put it in his hand.

  “It is a marvelous gift,” said Helvia.

  “It is from a grateful mother,” said Aurelia.

  Marcus could never remember when his mother had kissed him, but now she pulled down his head and kissed his cheek, then patted it. “I am proud,” she repeated. She sat there beaming at him pridefully, the pleated ruffle of her stola falling over her plump feet.

  The enmity between Marcus Tullius Cicero and Lucius Sergius Catilina grew prodigiously. But never again did Lucius ridicule Marcus before their classmates.

  Marcus wore Aurelia’s gift all his life, and years later he showed it to Julius.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Long before he was ceremoniously initiated into the status of adolescence Marcus was made further miserable at school by the entry of two others such as Lucius Sergius Catilina: Cneius Piso and Quintus Curius, who were Lucius’ devoted friends. Cneius, too, was of a charming and patrician air and countenance, but he was smaller and quicker than Lucius and even more haughty, less interested in leading the school, more thoughtful and scheming. He had fair hair and gray eyes and somewhat girlish mannerisms, and high light laughter like a maiden’s. In many ways, however, these were deceptive, for he had no fear of anything whatsoever, so proud was he of his patrician family, which was as poor as Lucius’. He demanded servility in all save Lucius and Curius, and he invariably received it except from Marcus and little Julius.

  Q. Curius was a grim, dark-faced youth, surly but intellectual. He would inherit a seat in the Senate, and all were soon appraised of the fact. Tall and athletic and slender, he stood even above the tall Lucius in height, and had a glowering look, and a sullen, prominent face. His family had more money than did the Catilinii and Piso families, and he was the heir of his rich grandfather.

  These two joined their contempt with that of Lucius for Marcus, who, as Lucius informed them, belonged to the class of “new men,” that is, the middle-class. “Do not cross him,” said Lucius in Marcus’ hearing, “he is a foul fighter, a fool, and a person of no importance or principle. Should one associate with such?” The two agreed that one should not.

  Little Julius Caesar, now almost nine years old, laughed at what he called “the triumvirate.” “One of these days,” he said to Marcus, “when I am a man, I shall make public idiots of them, for they have pretensions. Are their families better than mine? No. Only Curius is richer.” Julius smacked his lips. “Curius has a cousin, an orphan girl, of much beauty. It is said she will become a Vestal Virgin, but Lucius wishes to marry her. Her name is Livia.”

  Once Curius brought a bundle of filthy garments belonging to a slave of his household to school, and tossed them at the feet of Marcus. “Your family are fullers, are they not?” he asked in his deep, fifteen-year-old voice. “Excellent. Take this then, to your father, for washing.”

  Marcus looked at him long and silently, then went for a bucket of water and put it at the feet of Curius. “A man is a slave who insults another without provocation,” he said. “Therefore, slave, wash your clothing.”

  “He gouges at the genitals, with an eye to unmanning, because he has no genitals of his own,” said Lucius. Marcus, only past twelve, continued to stare at Curius. Curius turned away with an obscene sound of contempt. “I do not fight cats,” he said. But the school knew that Marcus had won this engagement.

  Marcus’ integrity, discerned angrily by all three youths, did not make them feel kindly toward Marcus. They called him upstart and pretender and the mimic of his betters. Fortunately, Curius’ father decided that his son must have a private tutor, and included Lucius and Cneius generously in his invitation. Marcus was overwhelmingly relieved. I will never encounter them again, he thought. When he heard, later, that they had gone to Greece to complete their education, Rome, to Marcus, seemed cleaner for their absence. The world was less bright because they lived in it.

  Years later, when a mature man, Marcus wrote, “It is wrong to bring children up in an atmosphere solely of family and fraternal affection, without enlightening them that beyond the safe walls of home there lives a world of Godless, dishonorable, and amoral men, and that these men are in the majority. For when an innocent youth must inevita
bly encounter the world of men he suffers a wound from which he will never recover, and a sickness of heart which will permanently sicken his soul. Better at once, even from the cradle, to teach your son that man is intrinsically evil and that he is a destroyer and a liar and a latent murderer, and that your son must be armed against his brother lest he die in body or in spirit! The Jews are quite correct when they declare that man is desperately wicked from his birth and evil from his youth. Possessing this knowledge, your son can then say to himself, ‘With the help of God I shall be kinder than my brother, and shall strive for virtue. It is my duty to aspire above my human nature.’”*

  The year after Lucius Sergius Catilina and his companions left the school of Pilo a new student took his place, a boy of fifteen, one Noë ben Joel, the son of a rich Jewish stockbroker. He became a general favorite at once, though Pilo sarcastically observed that half the great Roman families were in pawn to him. Pilo, of course, charged Joel ben Solomon more than he charged the majority of fathers, just as he charged Tullius Cicero more for his son, the reason being, as he would say loftily, that those who had should share with those who had not. This peculiar philosophy was one with which Archias never agreed; charity was excellent, but it should be voluntary and not arbitrarily imposed by those whose purses were not touched, or in the name of “mankind,” a word to which Pilo was much attached and which cost him nothing but made him feel excessively virtuous. (“Deliver me from the hypocrites,” said Archias.)

  Noë immediately took an enormous interest in his fellow students, in Pilo, and even in the slave who cared for the noonday wants of the school. Nothing was too minute for his inspection and curiosity. He was affable, generous with his purse, amusing and irreverent. He rarely appeared to study yet he was soon Pilo’s favorite student. He was formidable in mathematics, philosophy, languages, science, rhetoric, poetry, and mimicry. He could imitate anyone, to the screaming laughter of his mates and even to the one mimicked. But he was never cruel or vindictive, nor did he mimic to ridicule.