The Roman Traitor, Vol. 2

by Henry William Herbert

  CHAPTER XIV.

  THE TULLIANUM.

  To be, or not be, that is the question. HAMLET.

  Night was at hand.

  The Roman Senate might not sit after the sun had set.

  Although the Tribunes had failed, in the consternation of the moment, torespond to the call of Cæsar, there was no doubt, that, if one nightshould intervene, those miscalled magistrates would check the course ofjustice.

  Confined, apart one from the other, in free custody, the traitors had notfailed to learn all that was passing, almost ere it passed.

  Their hopes had been high, when the rabble were alert and thundering atthe prison gates—nor when the charge of the knights had beaten back themultitude, did they despair; for simultaneously with those evil tidings,they learned the effect of Cæsar’s speech; and shortly afterward the newsreached them that Cicero’s reply had found few willing auditors.

  Confined, apart one from the other, they had eaten and drunken, and theirhearts were "jocund and sublime"; the eloquence of Cæsar, the turbulenceof the tribunes, were their predominant ideas. Confined, apart one fromthe other, one thought was common to them all,—immediate liberation,speedy vengeance.

  And, in truth, immediate was the liberation; speedy the vengeance.

  Night was at hand.

  The Triumvirs, whose duty it was to superintend all capital punishments—athing almost unknown in Rome—had been instructed to prepare whatevershould be needful.

  Lentulus sat alone in an inner chamber of the house of Publius LentulusSpintherus, an Ædile at that time. There was, it is true, a guard at thedoor, and clients under arms in the atrium; but in his own apartment theproud conspirator was still master of himself indeed, soon to be master ofRome, in his own frantic fantasy.

  Bright lights were burning in bronze candelabra; rich wines were beforehim; his own favorite freedman leaned on the back of his ivory arm chair,and jested lightly on the discomfiture of _noble_ Cicero, on the suretriumph of _democratic_ Cæsar.

  "Fill up the glass again, my Phormio," cried the exhilarated parricide;"this namesake of my own hath good wine, at the least—we may not taste itagain shortly—fill up, I say; and do not spare to brim your own. What ifour boys were beaten in the streets to-day. Brave Cæsar was not beaten inthe Senate."

  "By Hercules! no!" cried the wily Greek, base inheritor of a superbname—"and if he had been checked, there are the tribunes."

  "But he was _not_ checked, Phormio?" asked the conspirator in evidentanxiety.

  "By your head, no! You shall yet be the THIRD CORNELIUS!"—

  "WHO SHALL RULE ROME!"—

  The door of the small room was suddenly thrown open, and the tall form ofCicero stood in the shadow of the entrance. The gleam of the lamps fellfull on his white robes, and glittered on his ivory sceptre; but behindhim it showed the grim dark features of the Capital Triumvirs, andflickered on the axe-heads of the lictors.

  The glass fell from the hand of Lentulus, the wine untasted; and so deepwas the silence of that awful moment, that the gurgling of the liquor asit trickled from the shattered fragments of the crystal goblet, wasdistinctly audible.

  There was a silent pause—no word, no motion followed the entrance of theConsul. Face to face, he stood with the deadliest of his foes, Catilineabsent. Face to face, he stood with his overthrown and subdued enemy. Andyet on his broad tranquil brow there was no frown of hatred; on his calmlip there there was no curl of gratified resentment, of high triumph.

  Raising his hand, with a slow but very solemn gesture, he uttered in hisdeep harmonious accents, accents which at that moment spoke in almost anunnatural cadence, this one word—

  "Come."

  And calm, and proud, as the Consul, the degraded Senator, the fallenConsul replied, with a question,

  "To death, Consul?"

  "Come!"

  "Give me my toga, Phormio."

  And robing himself, with an air as quiet and an expression as unconcernedas if he had been setting forth to a banquet, the proud Epicurean gazedwith a calmer eye upon the Consul, than that good man could fix upon hisvictim.

  "This signet to Sempronia—that sword to—no! no!—this purse to thyself,Phormio! Consul, precede. I follow."

  And the step of the convicted Traitor, as he descended from the portico ofthat mansion, for the last time, was firmer, statelier, prouder, than thatof his conductor.

  The streets were thronged—the windows crowded—the housetops heaped—withglaring mute spectators.

  Some twenty knights, no more, unarmed, with the exception of their swords,composed the Consul’s escort. Lentulus knew them, man by man, had drunkwith them, played with them, lent money to them, borrowed of them.

  He looked upon them.

  They were the handful leading him to death! What made them break the tieswhich bound them to their brother noble? What made them forget mutualpleasures enjoyed, mutual perils incurred, mutual benefits accepted?

  They were the nobles, true to their order.

  He looked upon the thronged streets—upon the crowded windows—upon theheaped housetops, he saw myriads, myriads who had fed on his bounty,encouraged his infamy, hoped from his atrocity, urged him to his crime,myriads who now frowned upon him—cursed him—howled at him—or—morecowardly—were silent. Myriads, who might have saved him, and did not.

  Wherefore?

  They were the people, false to their leader.

  He looked from the handful to the myriad—and shook himself, as a lion inhis wrath; and stamped the dust from his sandals.

  Cicero saw the movement, and read its meaning. He met the glance, nothumiliated, but prouder for the mob’s reprobation; and said, what he wouldnot have said had the glance been conscious—

  "Thou seest!—Hearest!"

  "The voice of the People!" answered the traitor with a bitter sneer.

  "The voice of God!" replied the Consul, looking upward.

  "That voice of God shall shout for joy at thy head on the rostrum! Such isthe fate of all who would serve the people!"

  The eloquent tongue, stabbed with the harlot’s bodkin, the head and thehand, nailed on the beaked column in after days, showed which best knewthe people, their savior, or their parricide.

  There is a place in Rome—there _is_ a place—reader, thou mayest have seenit—on the right hand as thou goest up the steps of the Asylum ascendingfrom the forum to the capitol.

  "There _is_ a place," wrote Sallust, some nineteen hundred yearsago—"There _is_ a place, within the prison, which is called Tullianum,after you have ascended a little way to the left, about twelve feetunderground. It is built strongly with walls on every side, and archedabove with a stone vaulting. But its aspect is foul and terrible fromneglect, darkness, and stench."

  It is there _now_—thou mayest have seen it, reader. Men call it theMamertine Prison. It was then called Tullianum, because it was so antiqueat that time, that vague tradition only told of its origin long centuriesbefore, built by the fabulous King Tullius.

  The Tullianum—The Mamertine Prison.

  The _bath_, which Jugurtha found very cold, when the earrings had beentorn from his bleeding ears, and, stript of his last vestment, he was letdown to die by the hangman’s noose.

  The prison, in which, scarce one century later, Saint Paul was held indurance, what time "Agrippa said unto Festus, This man might have been setat liberty, had he not appealed unto _Cæsar_."

  Unto _Cæsar_?

  Cæsar the third Emperor, the third tyrant of the Roman people.

  Lentulus _had_ appealed unto Cæsar, and was cast likewise into theTullianum.

  The voice of the people, is the voice of God.

  Whether of the twain slew Lentulus? whether of the twain set free Paul,from the Tullianum?

  In those days, there was a tall and massive structure above that sordidand tremendous vault, on the right hand as you go up towards the capitol.

  The steps of the asylum were lined on either side by legionar
ies in fullarmor; and as the Consul walked up with his victim, side by side, eachsoldier faced about, and, by a simple movement, doubling their files,occupied the whole space of the steep ascent with a solid column; whileall the heights above, and the great capitol itself, bristled with spears,and flashed with tawny light from the dense ranks of brazen corslets.

  The Capital Triumvirs received the Consul at the door; and with hisprisoner he passed inward.

  It was in perfect keeping with the Roman character, that a man, hopelessof success, should die without an effort; and to the fullest, Lentulusacted out that character.

  Impassive and unmoved, he went to his death. He disgraced his evil life byno cowardice in death; by no fruitless call upon the people forassistance, by no vain cry to the nobles for mercy.

  But it was the impassibility of the Epicurean, not of the Stoic, thatsustained him.

  He went to die, like his brother democrats of France, with the madness ofAtheism in his heart, the mirth of Perdition on his tongue.

  They two, the Convict and the Consul, ascended a little, two or threesteps, to the left, and entered a large apartment, paved, walled, androofed with stone; but in the centre of the floor there was a small roundaperture.

  There were a dozen persons in that guard-room, four of whom were hisfellow-traitors—Gabinius, Statilius, Cæparius, and Cethegus—two prætors,four legionaries, and two Moorish slaves composed the group, until withthe Triumvirs, and his twelve lictors, Cicero entered.

  "Ha! my Cæparius!" exclaimed Lentulus, who had not seen him since themorning of his arrest. "We have met again. But I slept my sleep out. Thoumight’st as well have slept too; for we are both met here"—

  "To die! to die! Great Gods! to die!" cried Cæparius utterly overcome, andalmost fainting with despair.

  "Great Gods indeed!" replied Lentulus with his accustomed half-sardonic,half-indolent sneer. "They must be great, indeed, to let such a puppet asthat," and he pointed to Cicero, as he spoke, "do as he will with us. Todie! to die! Tush—what is that but to sleep? to sleep without the troubleof awaking, or the annoyance of to-morrow? What sayest thou, my Cethegus?"

  "That thou art a sluggard, a fool, and a coward; curses! curses! cursesupon thee!" And he made an effort to rush against his comrade, as if tostrike him; and, when the guards seized him and dragged him back, he shookhis fist at Cicero, and gnashed his teeth, and howling out, "Thou too!thou too shalt die proscribed, and thy country’s foe!" by a sudden effortcast off the men who held him, and crying, "Slaves and dastards, see how aRoman noble dies," rushed, with his head down, at the solid wall, as abuffalo rushes blindly against an elephant.

  He fell as if he were dead, the blood gushing from eyes, nose, and mouth,and lay senseless.

  Lentulus thought he was killed, gazed on him for a moment tranquilly, andthen said with a quiet laugh—

  "He was a fool always—a rash fool!" Then turning to Cicero, he added—"ByHercules! this is slow work. I am exceeding hungry, and somewhat dry; and,as I fancy I shall eat nothing more to-day, nor drink, I would fain go tosleep."

  "Would’st thou drink, Lentulus?" asked one of the Triumvirs.

  "Would I not, had I wine?"

  "Bring wine," said the magistrate to one of the Moorish slaves; who wentout and returned in an instant with a large brazen platter supportingseveral goblets.

  Lentulus seized one quickly, and swallowed it at a mouthful—there is a hotthirst in that last excitement—but as the flavor reached his palate, whenthe roughness of the harsh draught had passed away, he flung the cup downscornfully and said,

  "Finish it! Take this filthy taste from my lips! Let me rest!"

  And with the words, he advanced to the Moors who stood beside thewell-like aperture, and without a word suffered them to place the ropeunder his arms, and lower him into the pit.

  Just as his head, however, was disappearing, he cast his eyes upward, andmet the earnest gaze of the Consul.

  "The voice of the people! the man of the people!" he cried sarcastically."Fool! fool! _they_ shall avenge me! Think upon me near Formiæ!"

  Was that spite, or a prophecy?

  The eyes of the dying sometimes look far into futurity.

  The haughty traitor was beyond the sight, before his words had ceased toring in the ears of the spectators.

  There was a small low sound heard from below—not a groan, not astruggle—but a rustle, a sob, a flutter—silence.

  ’So did(12) that Patrician, of the most noble house of the Cornelii, whoonce held consular dominion in Rome, meet his end, merited by his courseof life, and his overt actions.’

  Cethegus perished senseless, half dead by his own deed.

  Cæparius died sullen; Gabinius weak and almost fainting; Statiliusstruggling and howling. All by a hard and slavish death, strangled by thebase noose of a foreign hangman.

  An hour afterward, their corpses were hurled down the Gemonian Stairs,among the shouts and acclamations of the drunken slavish rabble.

  An hour afterward, Cicero stood on the rostrum, near the Libonianwell—that rostrum whereon, at a later day Lentulus’ prophecy wasfulfilled—and called out, in a voice as solemn and almost as deep asthunder,

  "THEY WERE!"

  And the voice of the people yelled out its joy, because they _were_ nolonger; and hailed their slayer the Savior and Father of his country.

  A few years afterward, how did they not hail Anthony?