Rome For Sale, page 19
She said nothing, but choked back a sob. “What do you mean by it?” he demanded.
“I didn’t hear him coming,” she said without mockery. Cato darted at her a raking glance. She had always been rather a simpleton, unlike her sister.
“What am I to do about it?” asked Lucullus helplessly. Cato stared at him with contempt. How old the man looked as he stood there, afraid of an adulterous wife.
“Flog and geld the adulterer. Flog and divorce the adulteress.”
“She’s your sister,” said Lucullus weakly. “I’m sick of the whole business. I don’t want to harm her. My anger’s gone.” It had passed out of him with the memory of that burning city. He wanted to forget the world, to create a new space of luxurious textures and impossibly toothsome foods. Women must be shut out altogether. No man knew who was the father of his children. There must be a divorce, but nothing hasty. Perhaps he would give her another chance for Cato’s sake. He thought very highly of Cato.
His wife, whose senses were dazed with long weeping, had slowly realised that she was being threatened with a flogging. She screamed and threw herself at her brother’s feet. He thrust her away, and she turned to Lucullus, grasping him about the legs. Lucullus shuddered. It felt as if he were back at Amisus. The ravished women were all about him, accusing him because they would not know the fathers of their children—because he, a Roman general, the man who had finally won the East for Rome, could not discipline his soldiers.
“Don’t flog me,” she moaned. “I’ll be so good. I’ll worship you. Never, never again will I do anything wrong.”
Lucullus tried to push her away. “You shan’t be flogged,” he mumbled. “You’re a silly little damned fool. I’m not going to flog you. I’m sick of you. That’s all.”
Cato sat looking on with disapproval. He could not see why any discussion was needed. He was sorry for the woman’s distress, she had been his favourite sister; but pity or liking did not lessen her guilt. Let her suffer. If she were divorced, he would take her back and keep her under his eyes; she was always well-behaved when he was about. It had been the same during their childhood. With him she had been good. When he was away, she had been up to all kinds of tricks with the stable-boys. He would look after her when she was divorced, but meanwhile she had wronged Lucullus and must pay for it.
Lucullus managed to extricate his legs. Stumbling to the door he shouted for assistance. Two slave girls rushed in, picked up their mistress, and carried her out.
“I love you,” she moaned to Lucullus. “Thank you, thank you. I’ll always be good now.”
20
They carried her and laid her down on the bed and then retired. She lay sobbing for a while in the big carved bedstead, among the crumpled silks. Then she sat up and looked wildly round. There was no one near but her confidential maid Doris.
“Am I safe?” she whispered.
“Yes,” said Doris. “He isn’t going to do anything. I heard him through the curtains saying that he wouldn’t beat you.”
Her mistress lay back, thinking. Her relief passed, and she grew angered. How dare Lucullus take such an attitude after the way he went on with his pet Callisthenes. How dare he treat her like a slave. She wouldn’t have it at all costs.
“Doris,” she whispered, “you know that nice-looking boy who serves in the cellar. Go and tell him to bring me up a cup of scented Lesbian wine.”
Doris hesitated. “I’m frightened.”
“If you don’t go, I’ll tell them all the other things and you’ll be flogged for certain.”
With a weak mutter of complaint Doris stole out of the room. Her mistress lay stretched taut in the bed. Her body felt streaming with fire. It was all the fault of those men. She wouldn’t be treated like a slave, not even if they did flog her. Her life was flowing out of her. Who would staunch it?
Doris entered, followed by a reluctant slave boy with a half spilt cup of wine. She shoved the boy forward. Her mistress sat up in bed, took the cup, and, still holding the boy’s wrist, gulped down the wine. The boy tried to move away, but she tugged at his arm. “Kiss me first.”
“They’ll crucify me.”
“They will if you don’t do what I tell you. I’ll swear that you tried to force me.”
Trembling violently, the boy leaned down and kissed her.
21
Cato rose to go, refusing an offer of wine for refreshment. He was disappointed in the behaviour of Lucullus. But what else could he expect? Lucullus had been a stalwart in defence of the ancient discipline of manners before his departure for the East, and now he was the chief exponent of costly living.
Lucullus pressed Cato to stay for dinner, but Cato refused curtly and Lucullus walked with him to the front door. They passed through the library where experts from Alexandria were cataloguing, sorting out, testing the accuracy of texts, arranging the rarer volumes, and directing the host of slaves who were clipping, polishing, staining against worms, and pasting on labels. They went along the gleaming hall lined with priceless statues and inlaid with marble from the Island of Melos. As yet the Alexandrian gaudiness of contrasted marbles, the plaques and gilt and incrustations, had not yet reached Rome; the wish to make a show had gradually increased; but it was in the next few years, when the inflow of money from Pontus and Gaul had temporarily overcome the credit-tangle, that Roman luxury was to burst out with its full splendour and vulgarity. The house of Lucullus was a landmark between the old and new standards of millionaire display.
A low sound of mallets could be heard somewhere in the rear where carpenters were still banging. Through an open doorway painters were seen at work, standing on planks laid across trestles while slaves ground and prepared the colours. Each room had its colour-scheme, with frescoes to match. Lucullus had spared no pains to find the best Greek masters; and the hangings, the easel-pictures, the statues, had been carefully graded and matched to make each room perfect in its harmony.
But for the moment he had lost all interest. It served him right for marrying a second time after wifeless years at the war, but he had thought Cato’s family at least reliable. Cato felt the implied rebuke but refused to defend himself. When a man married he did so at his own risk, and there was something shameful about a man whose woman fooled him. It was the fault of giving women freedom; pampered, they of course misbehaved, it was their nature. He recalled the words of his great ancestor: only three times in his life had he done something that left a remorse—he had lived a whole day intestate, once taken a ferry when he could have walked, and once entrusted his wife with a secret. Never kiss your wife unless it thunders. Those were sound maxims.
Lucullus and Cato stood in the portico with its long line of richly ornamented pillars, looking down on Rome. Before them lay the northern slope of the stone walls, the thickly housed area of the Quirinal. Over the Capitol hung a dark cloud.
“It looks like rain,” said Lucullus. “Surely you’ll let me lend you a litter?”
“No. I prefer to walk.”
“As far as the Gate at least.”
“No.”
Cato turned and went, striding rapidly down the paved carriage-way set with cypresses and box trees. On the lawns there rose some of the cherry trees which Lucullus had introduced into Italy. They were acclimatising themselves perfectly; soon they would be foam-clouds of purest white. The sight of them warmed the chilled heart of Lucullus, and he forgot his wife. At least the cherry-experiment had succeeded. His mind turned more interestedly to the problem of food.
“Send Pausias to me in the Apollo Room,” he told an attendant. He would discuss with this cook, the most intelligent man he knew, the æsthetics of dinner. Surely harmony was necessary in colour-relations here as elsewhere. Could a dish of prawns or lobsters be served decently in a room with dawn-grey walls and a painting by Apelles? What hangings would best suit the red wine and what the white? What were the relations of the various sculptors to the menus? These were serious matters, worthy the attention of a general who had no more worlds to conquer and whose wife was unfaithful. At least he would build a beautiful city, an oasis in the desert of vulgar uproar, an Elysium where the gratifications of every sense were harmoniously blended. But women must be excluded henceforth. They marred any wall-decorations.
22
Cato arrived home weary, not with the walk (for he was very fit and strong) but with rage against his half-sister. Where Lucullus had looked down on a city of swarming vanities and encircling tumults from his portico on the Pincian, Cato had seen only a race doomed to exhaust itself by an unrestrained fury of appetite. He had never realised before how displeased he was by the surrender of Lucullus to luxury and the arts. Lucullus, the sturdy opponent of the democrats, the hard-living soldier, the general who brought back to the army for a few years the ruthless level of discipline which had come naturally to the legion of farmer-patriots—Lucullus was conquered by Greek cooks and books on sauces. It was token of the end.
Cato walked the streets in which he could feel the first tremors of cataclysm. Idiots, chattering and flushed with petty greeds, all doomed. What could a man do? Fight to suppress, to keep things as they were, not out of hope of redemption, but out of contempt for his own fate. The ancient discipline was ended, but Cato could proclaim its virtues. The idiots should not lose themselves in their childish pleasures on the lap of earthquake; he would at least disturb them and give them bad dreams before the end swallowed all alike.
Arriving home, he retired into his private room, and, refusing any food, called for a large three-pint jar of wine. Then he settled down to drink the night out. Since he always drank alone, he had the belief that no one knew of his habit; and since it never interfered with his tense fitness, he refused to consider it a moral lapse. The farmer-soldiers had been hard-livers, and he fought out his battles alone in the dimly-lighted chamber over his cups of wine. The shadows swelled riotously. He saw himself shouting, fighting, damning, denying all compromise. The warriors of old rose up, thronging to hearten him, his only real friends. They were the living, the voices that he heard, the arms that clasped him. They were his strength, his nightly companions. How could a man live unless he had friends with him to share his thoughts and resolutions? How easy it was to defy the puny men of the day when he had such friends!
Yet Cato felt very lonely as he poured out the first wine cup.
23
It was the end of May, and about this time the festival of Ambivalia, the beating of the bounds, was celebrated. Flamma, who cherished all country-pieties, saw to it that all was done with full formality. Every man, woman and child in his employ was given garlands and ribbons and brightly-coloured clothing; they sat down to a good meal, and then, warmed with wine and food, they took up their olive-branches and went in procession thrice round the bounds of his estate, singing and waving the leaves and jostling one another playfully. With them they drove the threefold sacrifice, the pig and bull-calf and lamb, and thus the many dangers that threaten young and growing life were warded off. The wolf, the pest, the blight, and the drought were beaten out; Mars Silvanus was driven outside the bounds into the wilderness; and triumphantly the soil was redeemed as humanly owned.
Flamma loved the rite, but was worried. Though he had spoken cheerfully to Catalina on the coming revolt, he feared it; for he wanted a comfortably-settled countryside above all things. Yet he did not see how that could be brought about without violence, and he therefore supported the ousted farmers. It was all very sad, this inability of mankind to agree and save themselves from infinite misery and broils. Perhaps they never would agree. But that did not stop a man from hoping, and if he hoped he felt himself drawn to act and help the action which promised best, even if it would end in the same old muddle. In the last resort it was everyone’s primary duty to put their own affairs into order, to cultivate their own plot of ground. He had done that; his conscience should be easy.
The sacrifices were made. The pipers shrilled away their loudest so that no ill-omened sound should spoil the proceedings. If there was any flaw, everything would have to be done over again. Flamma spoke the prayer proper to the occasion, taking care not to misplace a word.
“O Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee to be kind and propitious to me and my household and my lands, for the which end I have caused the threefold sacrifice to be driven round my farm and land; and I pray thee to keep, avert, and turn away from us all plagues, seen or unseen, all desolation, destruction, damage, and unseasonable influence; and I pray thee to give increase to the fruits and the crops and the vines and the plantations, and to bring them to prosperous issue, and to keep also in safety the shepherds and their flocks, and to give good health and vigour to me and my house and household; and to this end it is, as I have said, to purify and to make due lustration of my farm, my land cultivated and my land uncultivated, that I pray thee to bless the threefold sacrifice of sucklings O Father Mars, to this same end I pray thee to bless the threefold sacrifice of sucklings.”
He was praying for the entire world. Who was to drive the threefold sacrifice round the bounds of the world and abolish all evil at last? A long journey for a man to make. Catalina had set out on it. Flamma felt that he was praying for Catalina.
V - BEFORE THE ELECTIONS
I
Cicero was elated. The routine of preparing for the elections was so customary to him that he felt no doubts in mustering the opposition to Catalina and the other popular leaders such as Cæsar, who had come forward for the prætorship; and the gloomy remarks which he heard for ever among the bankers and managers of the joint-stock companies made him feel that Catalina was indeed a villainous politician when the remotest rumour of his success could derange the whole financial world. The bankers told him that Catalina’s election would mean the total collapse of credit; the business-men declared that, despite Sulla’s precautions in establishing granaries nearer to Rome than the port of Ostia, the breakdown of the merchant-marine would mean starvation for the populace. Cicero determined to protect the mob from the consequences of their own folly, and at the same time to stop a depreciation of the shares in the various companies with which grateful directors presented him.
His friend Atticus was working hard in the business-world to organise the propaganda against Catalina, and that was a further encouragement. Atticus had no doubts that Catalina’s election would be a disaster. He spent much time at Cicero’s house, and Cicero, feeling the visits part of his duties, called on Atticus in his house on the Quirinal to hear the latest news from the agents which the capitalists had everywhere throughout the empire.
“You and I know that there are abuses,” said Atticus, as they sat in his plainly furnished living-room, “but they must be tackled one by one. The man is either mad or a charlatan.”
“Isn’t it possible to be both?” asked Cicero, sipping some watered Caecuban. “Isn’t it possible to be both a fraud and a fanatic? I take that to be the most dangerous combination.”
Atticus considered. “You’re right, and it’s an observation that would have come better from me as an Epicurean. I’m ashamed I left it to you to make. All evil is done by men who are tormented. Once a life becomes a burden it should be ended. Catalina is tormented by the wish to save the world by destroying it because he doesn’t realise that it’s his own suffering purse that galls him. But he knows it at the same time, and that’s why he’s tormented.”
Cicero cleared his throat. He did not quite like these analyses. Could not a good man be troubled by an uncertainty as to his own motives? Or rather not to his motives but the effects of his actions? He, Cicero, knew that he was working for the best, and he knew that no other course was possible, and yet he was disturbed by the fact that a policy of genuine good will could attract so much misunderstanding, scorn, resentment. “It means a lot to me,” he said, “that you’re helping me in this, you who don’t believe in political action.”
Atticus noticed the inwardly turned eye. “Yes,” he answered. “I believe in letting evil alone. I don’t mean that one shouldn’t defend one’s life against a footpad, but the only ultimate defence is to withdraw. One defeats evil by ignoring it. Yet here it is a question of a thief in the house.”
Cicero was comforted. Atticus, who lived so peaceably, so humbly, was the best judge. His meals were sparse, a few vegetables; he wasted no money, and yet was the least miserly man in Rome; his culture was quiet and deep and pervasive; he treated his household friendlily, from the confidential agents to the lowest kitchen-slave; he charitably cared for the poor of the neighbourhood, lent money to his friends without interest, and lived on the most loving terms with his mother and sister, with his wife and daughter.
He was the man to judge of the genuineness of one’s actions, and he stood by Cicero in this crisis.
“By the way,” said Atticus, “if you see Curio the elder at the Senate to-morrow, tell him that I’ve arranged everything. He has been worrying, I find, because a loan of his is coming due.”
Cicero rose, glowing with pleasure at the man’s amiable nature which reconciled the needs of business-efficiency and fellow-feeling. “I must go now. These state-affairs, you know …”
Atticus smiled gently, and ushered him out; then he returned to the study and sat trying to compose a quatrain on Camillus the ancient conqueror of Veii. He was making a collection of such verses for a book of miniatures. It was hard to compress a man’s biography into a few lines, and he could not think of other things when so occupied. Those neuritis-pains seemed coming back. He could not think of business always, and sometimes thoughts were blindly mocking, like clucking tongues of water, senseless and dull and never-ending.
But that was only occasionally; for the most part he was happy, withdrawing from a world where fools wrestled with evil. Sit at peace and help your friend, and if you may sit in a garden you are blessed. Evil grows by resistance, violence creates violence. Yet he too was drawn into the net, he was helping against Catalina, and he had no choice. Catalina was a thief in the house, and Cicero was the friend of Atticus.
