A Pillar of Iron: A Novel of Ancient Rome

by Taylor Caldwell

  But the capital city was not idle in the face of the revolt of the states. Rome declared that her enemies were rebels (dediticii) to be at the absolute mercy of Rome when Rome conquered. They had forfeited rights under the Constitution.

  Marcus found that the Caesares had left the old neighborhood for the Palatine Hill. They had always proclaimed that they were not only patricians (though fallen on financially evil times) but that they were descended from Iulus, who was alleged to be the semi-divine grandson of Venus and Anchises. Young Julius’ uncle had just been appointed a Consul, and his father a praetor. They declared that they belonged to the Senatorial Party (Optimates). Therefore the humble neighborhood of the Ciceroni was not worthy of them any longer.

  “Exigent rascals!” said the old grandfather. “For a miserable honor they have deserted Italy, in the name of a Rome which no longer exists! So the father now announces he belonged to the Senatorial Party! Did he not often nobly insist to me that he was a popularis, in spite of his aristocratic origins—which I do not believe exist at all!”

  Helvia said, “Man must come to terms with circumstances.”

  “Ridiculous,” said the grandfather. “I am amazed at you, Helvia.”

  “The Caesares are not criminals, except in your eyes,” said Helvia. But she sighed. “There was a time in our history when men preferred death to dishonor. That is no more. If one is to survive, to exist, one must compromise these days. I do not recommend it. If I were a man I should prefer to die, but I am a mother of children, and a wife. What says Tullius about all this?”

  “He believes a noble hero will arise to bring justice once more to Rome and to unite all Italy with Rome again under our Constitution,” said the grandfather, spitting. “We shall not see Rome die tomorrow, but surely she is dying. For she has forgotten what once she was, or she laughs at it. We shall be enrolled among the nations who died by their own will and their own mischief.”

  A short time later, Rome, yielding to expediency, and alarmed by the resolution of the rebels, issued the Lex Plautia Papira for all allies who came before Roman magistrates within sixty days, and sought Roman citizenship. The war continued.

  *Gaius Julius Caesar, the Elder.

  † Letter to Crassus.

  *Letter to Scaurus.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “We have come,” said the grandfather, “on the age of tyrants. Governments use national emergencies to restrict and then to destroy liberty. Tell me not of Sulla, the ‘moderate!’ Why was he not banished permanently with the true moderate members of the Senatorial Party who were struggling to compromise with our Italian communities, now in revolt? Tell me not of General Marius, who speaks of freedom from one side of his mouth and then supports the oppressive central government! One has only to consider that both Sulla and Marius have now offered their services to Rome. What is the result? We are now restricted in our food and our drink; the military rules Rome, and the vile politicians who lust for power. Our comings and our goings are curtailed, in the name of national emergency. These taxes will never be lifted, for once government imposes a tax it finds excuses to retain it forever.

  “And the mobs of Rome—do they care that war between brothers is threatening Rome, freedom and the enfranchisement of all Italians? While our rations of corn are restricted, the mobs discover their own bowls are overflowing. While we tighten our girdles, as so nobly pleaded of us by the government, in order to save money and supplies, the mob finds itself clothed handsomely, and is arrogant in consequence, deeming itself superior even to its rulers, and shouting in the streets that their day is come, and writing on the walls at night; ‘Down with the privileged!’ No one, certainly, has ever told the Roman mobs that privileges are earned, and that those bestowed by a venal government are deceptive, hypocritical, and false. For what is not earned has no verity.

  “If the military had imposed military discipline on the city, and upheld justice, there would be no complaint. But they impose discipline only on us, who need no discipline, for we are aware of our duties. The mob is unrestrained. The manufacturies who supply military materials fill the hands of the mob with gold, so that they roister at night in the brothels and wineshops, and know no self-control. Who will restrain them when this war is ended, and teach them sobriety and honest labor again? They do not know even the meaning of this war, nor are they concerned! It is enough for them that they are suddenly rich and pampered by the government. Will the fumes of riotous living subside in them when peace is declared? No!

  “They have been creatures of the politicians for a long time, even before this. Now they will become their legions of disaster, violence, decay, and decline. Honorable, fair work is distasteful to them; they will demand leisure without working; they will shout that their betters must support them through taxation. Mendicants! Betrayers! Slaves! But the government is worse than they are, for the government is responsible. It now wishes unlimited power. The Republic is doomed, and all our democratic principles. Politicians and greedy mobs—this has been the history of catastrophe forever.”

  His son, Tullius, was vaguely stirred from his illness and apathy in spite of himself. He said, with piteous hope, “Wars always bring excess; so history teaches us. But Romans are Romans. When this is over order will be restored, our liberties returned to us, our taxes reduced, the mobs restrained, the exigent men retired.”

  “It is related,” said the grandfather, “that a lion, once he has tasted the blood and the flesh of a man, will eat no other meat. Our government has tasted the blood and the flesh of the people; it has tasted, suddenly, unlimited power. It will not be appeased except by more. May Jupiter have mercy upon us! But I fear he will not, for we have permitted the excesses of our government and have set up no safeguards against it.”

  Archias said to his pupil, Marcus, and with cynicism, “Does your grandfather believe that any nation remained virtuous and just and free? He is in the tide of history, and struggles against it, and dashes himself against stones. The Rome he knew is dying. Shall I weep? It happened so to Greece, and I weep for her in poetry. Marcus, let us write our poems. Consider Homer. The Greece he knew is dead, and all her glory. Troy has disappeared. Ulysses has long expired. The Parthenon echoes with alien feet. My people are enslaved and despised. But Homer remains. Long after Rome is rubble the schoolboys will read Homer and rejoice in his poetry.”

  Outside Marcus’ schoolroom Rome presented a picture of riot and disorder; the war rang beyond her walls. There was nothing in this which could engage a schoolboy, except his fears and anxieties. Because of the national emergency and the terror in the streets, there was little social life but what could be accomplished during the day. There was little feasting, due to rationing, except among the powerful and the mobs who honored no law. Marcus’ life, as part of the middle class, had always been serene and steadfast and virtuous and circumscribed by duty and worship. Now more and more he was driven in upon himself, in the very height of his youth.

  He wrote poetry—and thought of Livia Curius. Were it not for this war, he assured himself, he would have sought her out, ceremony or no ceremony. There were rumors that many of the rich, fearing the new and onerous laws of Rome, had fled to quiet spots throughout the world, mostly to Greece. It was very possible that Livia’s guardians had taken her to safety.

  He had, heretofore, worshiped Pallas Athene almost solely. Now, when he could make his way among the seething mobs of Rome, and among the refugees of the countryside, he went, unknown to his mother, to the temple of Venus. It did not occur to him until many years later that it was ironic that only in the temple of Venus was there no altar to the Unknown God. He sacrificed doves to Venus; he prayed at her altar. He gave almost all his frugal allowance to the priests for special prayers in his behalf. She was, above all, the deity to be invoked by those who loved. He forgot that she was also the goddess of concupiscence, of licentiousness, of all venereal excesses. To him she seemed most beautiful and compassionate and understanding.

&n
bsp; “You are pale and withdrawn these days,” said Noë ben Joel to Marcus at school. “Is it the war?”

  Marcus was embarrassed. He could not look into Noë’s shrewd and gentle eyes, which saw so many things, and say, “I am in love.” It was true that Noë was almost espoused to a Jewish banker’s daughter, and was vigorously opposing this in his house—for he had a mind to be free for some time and it was rumored the girl was unprepossessing—but Noë, in spite of his love for poetry, comedy, and tragedy, had an objective and somewhat skeptical view of passion, derived from his study of the stage if not yet from personal experience.

  No, he, Marcus, could not tell Noë of his pain. He was overwhelmed with fresh embarrassment when Noë thoughtfully said, “If I did not know your life so well, my Marcus, I should say you were in love. Love! The fetter of the free spirit! The enslaver! The traitor! You are too wise—and what an eloquent voice you have!—to love anything but poetry and the virtues.”

  I am not wise, then, thought Marcus. I am a slave, a slave to autumn hair and blue eyes and a wild, young spirit. I have no dreams but of Livia. I hear no girl’s voice, but I compare it with Livia’s. I see no girlish mouth but what I think how mean it is compared with hers. I hear her laughter in every girl’s laughter. I walk the streets, and she is beside me. I lie down at night, and she is with me. I rise, and I think of her with my first thoughts. Her face is imprinted on my books.

  “You are dull and inattentive,” said Pilo, the schoolmaster, to Marcus who was his most ardent student and the most erudite. Marcus knew that Pilo disliked him, for he had placed Pilo in a position of dishonor years ago, and men do not forgive those whom they have injured.

  The vast and clangorous city about him, murky, fuming in its ochres and yellows and reds and bronzes, the banners unfurled everywhere, the hurrying legions carrying their eagles and their fasces, the sounds of war drums, the galloping of couriers’ horses, the rattle and uproar of increasing traffic as more loyal refugees flooded into Rome in their chariots and cars and litters, the crowded temples, the ominous and bloody sunsets, the air of haste and disaster, of comings and goings, the endless mutter of millions of people within the gates, the clash of fright after the dark—all these things became dreamlike to Marcus in the pain which did not recede from him but daily was augmented by his despair.

  “He needs a tonic,” said Helvia, looking at his stern pale face. She brewed the blackest and vilest of her herbs and administered them to her son. It is strange, thought Marcus, that only my mother knows in some manner of my suffering. He drank her infusions with a vague gratitude. He understood that Helvia gave not only her herbs but her sympathy, and that the infusions were an offering. She never spoke of Livia, but her beautiful eyes would beam on her son, half in admonition, half with sadness.

  Even Quintus, his beloved brother, could no longer amuse him. Quintus was now at Pilo’s school, and unlike Marcus he was much admired, not for his scholarship which did not exist, but for his good humor, his amiability, his willingness to engage in combat, his attitude of self-assurance and heartiness. He became involved in the gossip of the school and all its affairs. As he was taller and stronger than the average, and excellent in sports and in all physical games, he soon acquired a measure of leadership. He brought his little treasures of scandal home to Helvia, who loved him deeply. Where does he pick up these morsels? Marcus would ask himself, listlessly and without interest. No one had ever gossiped to him, nor had he been concerned with scandal.

  One day Quintus said to him as they walked home through the crushing crowds which seemed everywhere, “That Julius! Now he has a tutor, Antonius Gnipho, a Gaul, of whom he boasts that he is wiser than Socrates. But Julius was always a boaster, as are all the Caesares. His father is a great man; his mother is a lady beyond compare, though we all know what a heavy hand she had upon him. All that is related to Julius is magnificent, noble, arrayed in grandeur, splendid beyond speech, important, marvelous, too awesome for a common mind to appreciate.”

  Marcus smiled a little. “Where do you meet this paragon, since he no longer is our neighbor and our schoolmate?”

  “At fencing school,” said Quintus, and he smiled with enjoyment. “At another hour than yours. He is a bad fencer. It enrages him. But he smiles. Gods, how he smiles!” But Quintus spoke without malice, and laughed. “However, there are few who can approach him in words. His voice is like honey when he wishes. He is exigent and without scruple.”

  Quintus sniffed. “How incense clings to your garments, Marcus! You are always in the temples. Are you aspiring to the priesthood? Or, do you mourn that girl still?” His tone was derisively kind.

  Marcus forgot that his brother was very young and far from adolescence. He lost his temper because of his great and hidden suffering. “You are impertinent and I detest impertinence!” he exclaimed. For the first time in his life he wanted to strike Quintus to relieve the pangs in him, but he only clenched his fist under his mantle. The dull February day was darkening, and torches and lanterns and tapers were scurrying everywhere and up and down the steep and narrow streets, between the high buildings. Marcus quickened his step. It was intolerable to him that this child should mock him.

  “I did not mean impertinence,” said Quintus, alarmed at the glimpse of his brother’s set profile. “I did not truly believe that you still remembered that girl. I do not even remember her face, though I saw it clearly! You must forgive me.”

  “It is of no matter,” said Marcus, ashamed of the anger he had felt. But his emotions were still turbulent. He thought with despair, Even if she is in Rome, how shall I find her? She is barred against me.

  The porticoes of jutting temples swarmed with late worshipers, who descended the steps to mingle with the crowds on the streets. Quintus caught his brother’s arm and pulled him sharply into a doorway, for a detachment of soldiers were marching with rapidity up the hill, their iron-shod sandals clanging on the stones. They moved like an inexorable phalanx, their drums beating, their banners flying. They had inhuman faces, fixed and apparently unseeing. They were on their way to one of the gates, and they carried packs on their backs. They rushed by the two youths in the doorway with a sound like wind and thunder. Other doorways were crowded with people caught in their passage. Marcus watched the soldiers march, and thought of his own coming military service with some disquiet. He was not of the metal of soldiers. If the Social War did not end soon he would be called, and his adolescence was almost upon him. The pillars and columns of temples and public buildings glimmered in torchlight; it had been raining; the crimson light was reflected in small pools on the stones. In the west there was a bloody giant thumbprint as if Mars had carelessly paused to smear it there.

  Quintus was deeply interested in the soldiers. His eyes sparkled in the last sullen twilight of the day and in the flare of the torches. “The drums stir me,” he said. “I regret I am not old enough to be a soldier.”

  “I am glad that you are not old enough to murder your brother in a social war,” said Marcus. The soldiers disappeared at the end of the high street, but their drums echoed behind them.

  “It is for the preservation of Rome,” said Quintus, who had apparently never heard a word his grandfather ever said.

  “It is for the advancement of despotism,” said Marcus. “Never was a war but for that.”

  They went on in silence. Quintus touched his brother on his arm. “I shall sacrifice for you in the temple of Leda, the mother of Castor and Pollux,” he promised, in an attempt to appease his brother’s misery.

  “For what?” asked Marcus, faintly amused in spite of everything. “I am not Zeus, in pursuit of a maiden, as he pursued Leda.” Then he blushed. He glanced quickly at his brother. It was impossible for Quintus to be subtle. Nevertheless, he said, “Neither am I a swan.”

  Quintus was somewhat offended, and this was unusual. He felt Marcus’ patronage. “Sacrifice, then, to Pluto, that he return your Proserpine to you,” he said. “Then there will be springtime in y
our heart.” His quick umbrage rose. “Do you not know that you sadden the house, and no one knows the cause? Our father has not risen from his bed for weeks, yet you rarely visit him now in his cubiculum, as once you did every night. You are engrossed only in your wretchedness.”

  A little darkness of remorse and alarm fell over Marcus’ mind. “Weeks? He has another attack of malaria. It was only a few days ago that he was at the table.”

  “Weeks,” said Quintus, shortly.

  And I did not miss him, thought Marcus, sorrowfully, suddenly aware that those stricken by love become, in a way of speaking, monstrous, immured in themselves, unaware of the life about them.

  “You have not seen the physicians, nor questioned them,” said Quintus. He loved his father, which was dutiful, but he thought him strange, too self-effacing, too modest, too quiet.

  “There have been physicians?” said Marcus, and despised himself.

  “And he has been bled several times,” said Quintus. “Do you know that you barely touch your plate at dinner, and that sometimes our grandfather talks for hours and you do not hear him? You look at him attentively, but your thoughts are far away. You distress our mother.”

  Marcus was ashamed. He was also embarrassed because Quintus had seen these things and noted them. If Quintus, who saw life singly and found it good, had noticed his brother’s abstractions then the affair was indeed serious. Marcus steadied himself. He could not overcome his pain, but at least he could pretend that it was not so great, or that he could endure it.

  He had, he confessed to himself, forgotten even God, his dedications, his hopes, his ambitions. He had been like Orpheus, futilely wailing. Yet, he could not help himself. However, he could muster some decency and remember those he should remember. He began to trot up the Carinae to the house, where lamplight was already glowing, and Quintus trotted more easily beside him. The hill, as everywhere, was crowded. Water from puddles splashed on the youths’ long tunics, and their shoes were thick with mud.