Rome For Sale, page 43
“I ran away.”
Manlius scratched his head. “I don’t understand. You came to fight. If I ever heard a man say you’d run away, I’d knock him down.”
“Still, I ran away.”
There was a thin rain falling outside the tent. The winter-chills were arriving, and though the farmer-troops did not complain the men from the cities were finding the weather hard to bear on the uplands.
Catalina continued, “If only the men were fully armed, I’d march straight down on Antonius. It’s hard for a man with a pointed stake to stand up against a legionary. It would have been different if we’d been marching on Rome.”
Cæsar was in Rome; he too, had run away. For a moment Catalina felt his life desolated, a snare. Had Cæsar perceived this? How could he be blamed for having chosen safety and a clear road? But Catalina could not put away the thought that if Cæsar had remained true things would have been different.
“We’ve done the right thing. We’re fighting against injustice. Nothing matters but that.”
Outside lay the winter-earth under a grey winter-sky. Rain ceaselessly, silently falling. Men shivering under the dripping tents and girls too tired now to paint their faces, doubled up with coughs. The women ought to be sent back to Fæsulæ and the other towns. Harvest-times were over, and those without store of golden food must starve on the barren hillside. The only hope was to keep to the Appenines and wait for further insurrections in the towns. But there was Murena in Gaul, Metellus Celer closing the Appenine passes, Gaius Antonius across South Etruria. Catalina was shut in.
“How are the men taking it?”
Manlius snorted. “My men know their minds. But the later recruits are upset, I’ll admit. I saw a party trying to sneak off this afternoon, but I soon had them rounded up.”
“We can’t keep an army that way. Let all go who wish to go.”
Manlius nodded and emptied the dregs of his cup as an oblation at the foot of the silver standard that stood planted beside the centre tent-pole. “She’ll sniff the scent of blood yet again before she dies. Eh, old girl?”
“Where’s your wife?” asked Catalina with a sudden remembrance and regret.
“Oh, she’s all right. Somewhere or other. Breeding in someone’s bed, I suppose, and good luck to her.”
Catalina yearned for the touch of Orestilla. He would never see her again. So be it. But winter had its virtues, the rigid shape of life frozen and blackened to its bare tensions, fortitude and patience and hardness. He had desired to be hard. Let him rejoice that he owned the winter. Grey sky, grey earth, the noiseless fall of rain. Would not these winter-rills feed the earth of spring?
2
On the tenth of December the new tribunes came into office at Rome. Immediately Bestia and Nepos held assemblies and attacked Cicero for perverting the constitution for party-purposes. Cæsar, assured that the energy of the conservatives had spent itself, made no effort to hide his hand. Cato, now also a tribune, fought against his colleagues, but could do little. Sestius arrived back from Capua with soldiers and overawed the populace, and then went off to join Antonius. Curius had been let loose from his dockside-prison and was pestering Catulus, who in turn was pestering Cicero; but it was too late to do anything effective, and when at last Curius did appear before the Senate to accuse Cæsar he was hardly listened to.
Cæsar had recognised that the collapse of Catalina’s effort marked a period in politics, and he put all his powers into gaining the support of the populace. Alone, the mob had no power; the last word was with the man in military control; but some day the proletarian movement and the military control would coincide, and then would come the real reorientation for which everyone was confusedly seeking. That much at least was clear. Meanwhile, there was the prophecy of Crassus to come true. Wealth would flow in from the East; not till the empire ceased its expansion would the final day of reckoning come.
Cæsar had no great fears that Pompeius would set up a military dictatorship. The man had too unwieldy a mind. Even if he did make the leap, he would not hold his position for long; but he would not make the leap; he wanted to be the first man of the state, courted by all, but he could never face entire responsibility. Treated carefully, he could be used. The first problems for Cæsar were to get rid of Mucia and consolidate his position with the people. In two years he would be standing for the consulship. Then would be the time for wider plans.
The conflict of the tribunes continued. To everyone’s surprise Cato proposed the full re-establishment of the food-dole. But though he objected to the principle of doles, he was not without his care for the populace and acceded to the request that he should anticipate a similar move by Bestia. When the Saturnalia opened, the authorities were fearful of riots, but there was only the usual uproar, carnival and brawling. As Cæsar had foreseen, the revolutionary spirit at Rome, though still uncrushed, needed careful nursing before it would recover the passion with which Catalina had infected it.
In December some small storage-rites led up to the great outburst of winter-thanksgiving, the Saturnalia, the feast of the rich food-cupboard and the prosperous state. Schools, courts and public offices were closed; slaves were allowed to wear the freedman’s cap, and, dressed gaily, they sat at banquets waited on by their masters. There was a sacrifice before the Temple of Saturn in the Forum, and a public dinner of senators and Equites. The dinner ended with the cry to Saturnalia, and that was the carnival-cry throughout the next week. The private citizen had an early bath, made a family-sacrifice of a sucking-pig, and then visited friends and relations, offering congratulations, games, and gifts. Chief among the gifts were little paste or earthen images or wax candles whose light aided the sun to round the difficult moment of the solstice.
The Saturnalia was followed by other rites of storing and sun-aid, and on the twenty-third there was a festival of All the Dead.
3
Curio and Marcus Antonius were roistering in the taverns. Curio the elder had locked up his son in desperation, and Antonius had effected a rescue by means of a ladder and a hole torn in the tiled roof. The loosened tiles he had used as missiles to keep off some slaves who interrupted the escape. Now the two friends were happy again. “Let’s go and join somebody’s army,” said Antonius. “Don’t forget that my rat-faced uncle is in command of one side, I forget which. Do you think we could bleed him?”
“I’m sure we couldn’t. Don’t forget it’s winter-time.”
“I’ve got an idea. We’ll go to his country-villa with two girls and say that he sent us. The steward knows me and he won’t like to throw us out. It will be weeks before he gets a message through to the army and learns we’re imposters as he’ll rightly suspect.”
“I’m with you. Where’s the girls?”
“Here, there, everywhere. Round the corner, on the floor above us, walking, talking, and rubbing the dirt off the soles of their feet.”
“How omnivorous you are,” sighed Curio. “But can’t we do it in style. Now, two twin sisters would make it look really nice.”
They set off down the streets of carnival, bumping through the masqueraders and the music, asking all the women if they had twin-sisters. “I hear the wife of Cethegus had twins,” said Curio. “Someone told me that she’d come up from the country to claim her house and refuses to vacate to the government-auctioneer.”
“Poor old Catalina,” said Antonius, stopping short. “What’s happened to him? Oh, he’s at the wars of course. Someday I’ll pay this bully Cicero back for killing old Lentulus, a decent old sleepy chap like that. I say, let’s call on Orestilla and see if we can do anything for her.”
They found the house, where Orestilla had been allowed to remain unmolested. Admitted, they stood abashed before her sorrowful face.
“I’m ashamed,” said Curio, “of having come along to worry you. We’re drunk, I fear. But we did really think of you all of a sudden and wonder if we could do anything to make things easier. I’m so afraid now that we stand here you’ll think us rude.”
“I think it’s very good of you,” said Orestilla, “but I’m afraid that no one can help me.” She spoke without any appeal for pity. “No, that isn’t true. It has made me happy to hear your kindness, but there’s nothing else you can do.”
Antonius noticed the girl leaning against her side. “A big girl. Not yours? I’m so sorry.” He pinched the girl’s cheeks. “I would have brought an apple if I’d only known. Always bring an apple.”
Orestilla showed them out and gave them a quiet smile. The two youths stood sobered by her presence. She seemed curiously at peace. Then they set off down the road. “Who’s that ahead?” asked Antonius. “Isn’t it Marcus Brutus, the serious lad that Servilia got one dark night in the dumps? He cheated me out of five coppers once over a game of draughts, the mean hound. Watch me now.”
He ran swiftly on tiptoe, caught up with the young Brutus, thumped him, and then leap-frogged over his back, disappearing with a shout round the corner before Brutus could raise himself and recognise the aggressor. Curio had followed close behind and sped round the corner after Antonius. They peeped back. Brutus had risen, shaking himself angrily and searching for something that he’d dropped. “I bet it’s a copper farthing,” said Antonius, “that he meant to lay out at interest for a thousand years or so. Come along, we’ve got to find our twins. Who would have thought there were so few presentable twins in Rome. Disgraceful. Who’s going to remedy it?”
4
On the first of January when Cicero, laying down his office, came forwards to address the people, Metellus Nepos vetoed the address; and though the conservative supporters raised a loud cheer in response to Cicero’s oath that he had saved his country, the rebuff was felt as the first decisive step of the reaction. A crowd of friends accompanied Cicero home, but the insult continued to rankle and Cicero used all his influence to create annoyances for Nepos. Nepos wrote in complaint to Metellus Celer in Picenum, and Metellus wrote indignantly to protest. Cicero sat in his study re-reading the letter and meditating the reply. Anxious to stay in Rome and to show his lack of mercenary motive, he had surrendered the province of Cisalpine Gaul to Metellus, and expected at least a show of gratitude. Moreover, the compact assured style of Metellus irritated him. Again the remark about “our ancestors.” Did the man have nothing else to think about?
Cicero took a reed-pen and laid it down again. He had begun the first draft of a poem celebrating his consulship. It was hard to recapture the joyous emotion, but it came after labouring a while at the lines; the noisy world retreated, and the great man stood amid the respectful murmurs of posterity. Certainly things were going well socially. Crassus had promised to sell that house on the Palatine in Clodia’s street. Two million sesterces. More than Cicero could strictly afford, but he must keep up appearances and leave the old family-house on the Oppian. Everyone was so eager to help, to give business-tips or lend money; he would have to take fees for his court-work, though it was illegal. Publius Sulla had already retained him in fear of a prosecution over the conspiracy. Of course he had been implicated, but so had so many people; and he at least had the decency to speak admiringly of Cicero’s work as consul; also he had hinted at his readiness with a loan. Well, why shouldn’t he, a rich man who wasted his money? Undoubtedly the case would eventuate. Cicero would suggest a loan of two million. If only news would come of the defeat and death of Catalina …
Perhaps it was lack of that news which still made things so flat. Though the two consuls were zealous men, they didn’t have much of a political grasp, and Cæsar was causing trouble; the tribunes were more insolent than ever; they were even talking of placing Cicero on his trial for illegally putting citizens to death. Cato too was a nuisance; he had already caused rifts in the concord of orders that had seemed so perdurable. No statesmen could build for eternity perhaps, but two or three months was a very slight length of time for the survival of the structure into the cementing of which Cicero had dripped so much sweat and blood. It was hard to take the long view. Meanwhile this irritably self-righteous Metellus must be answered.
Cicero carefully drove from his mind all the splendidly satisfying sarcasms and set to work justifying himself. “What you mean exactly by your letter I cannot quite comprehend; I suspect however you have been informed that, when maintaining that there was quite a number of men who resented my having saved the state, I asserted in the Senate that your relations, whose request you could not have refused, had prevailed on you to suppress the compliments you had already decided it was incumbent …” These long sentences that started uncoiling themselves when a man couldn’t write the truth of what was in his head! Cicero lost his train of thought and had to re-read what he had written.
5
Cæsar was giving a dinner. Bestia, Labienus, and Metellus Nepos were there, also Gaius Memmius, a freelance politician who had brought a friend named Lucretius whom no one knew. Memmius, a cultured and sceptical man with a veering enthusiasm for the humanities, fancied himself as an amorist, and Cæsar meant to egg him on to make love to Mucia. After the meal Cæsar drew Memmius aside, and in the course of a general discussion on women managed to convey to Memmius that Mucia was languishing for his acquaintance. Before long Memmius had asked with an air of casualness, “You were suggesting that I might see to some of these eastern matters for you. Would you like me to call on Mucia for further information?”
“Nothing would please me better,” said Cæsar heartily. Labienus, who had come up quietly behind Cæsar, stood listening in a rage that robbed him of the power to stir. So Cæsar had been playing with him like this when he had sent him to Mucia. Without a doubt Cæsar and Mucia had laughed together over his behaviour. Two damned aristocrats jeering at the snob. What had given them the right? He was as well dressed, mannered and educated, as much at ease in the world: if not as clever as Cæsar he outdistanced most of the patricians. What did he lack? Was it that insolent sense of security, that pretentious effect of frankness that hid the cold heart? He felt hatred for Cæsar, and would have broken with him then and there; but behind his hatred there woke a cry of caution. He had built his career on Cæsar; if he left now, he would have to start all over again. Whereas, later on, when real position was his, he would find time to repay. With an effort he tore himself away from the conversationalists; he must not let his face be seen till he had regained self-control.
Nepos and Bestia came up, and the talk became political. Cæsar explained his scheme to humble Catulus. For many years now Catulus had had charge of the funds for restoration of the Capitoline Temple; he had lingered unconscionably with the task and made no statement of his use of the funds; he liked the authority of the Capitoline Curator and had shown no haste to set up the bronze tablet inscribed with his name and declaring the completion of the work. He and his class needed a blow. Let the tribunes propose that he be deposed from his office, that a strict enquiry be made into his accounts, and that the honour of completing the work and leaving a name on the Temple be transferred to Pompeius.
Labienus, keeping at a distance where his face would not be scrutinised, could not but feel admiration for the scheme. The conservatives could not desert their great man; and once the struggle began, Pompeius would feel strongly affronted by their refusal to hand over the curatorship. Labienus recognised in this suggestion of Cæsar the first movement of forces that must end by driving a wedge between Pompeius and the Senate. To whom then could Pompeius turn but to Cæsar? Assuredly Labienus must not sever his connection with Cæsar, whatever he felt. The triumphant return of Pompeius from the east would merely pave the way for Cæsar’s passage to power.
6
No one noticed the obscure individual whom Memmius had brought along. Lucretius lay on a side-couch, with a wine-glass beside him. He watched with interest, concerned not with the words but with the faces and the configurations of emotion behind the faces. These men were fighting for political ends or social status, but they had no sense of the great web of energies of which they were part. Their politics and social status had no reality; such things were words, knots in the striving purpose, alien to that purpose. There was something miserably grand in the intent faces; through the eyes peered human greatness as through the bars of a dungeon-window. They hid from their fear, and failed. Lucretius felt his head swimming from the wine and the excitement that stirred within him. The couch was sinking and he was lost in elemental forces, crying out in a world that did not know the meaning of his words.
O troubled humanity, why do you fail? You have come so far, out of the dark forests, refusing the acorn-appetites and bringing the stars to earth with the magic of fire. You lay cold or burning in the woodlands and the open hillsides, a lumbering creature yearning to stand upright and reach at the sun and moon. Male and female, you lay on the ground and coupled, and the hunger of sex awoke in you like a great hollow bell, screaming through the night. Your senses heard it, and you yearned. You have fought upwards, out of the dark tunnels, dreaming of a clean naked body. Upwards the urge drives, one in the myriad cells of the human brain and the tangled skein of starlight. Poor man, frightened of the dark, bringing nightmares from the forest to fill the marble palaces of the sun. When will you be able to desire with wholeness, man? When will you cast out the gods and demons that madden you? When will you use religion to free yourself from religion and stand entire in a realised world?
Sad questions for a sick man lying forgotten on a couch in that small Roman room. What remains? Only the hunger of sex crying in the night, the plangent moon-voice, the hunger that drives upwards for ever. Ah, if that hunger could only drive out the terrors that it has brought from the dark forests of time. Every rustle of the curtain of darkness reawakens the human past, aeons of lying frightened under the dark boughs, frightened of the great cats that slouched through the undergrowth. Who will cleanse the blood of birth?
