Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'Cicero also dredged up old charges of corruption from the days when Catilina was an administrator in Africa. A few years ago Catilina was tried on those particular charges — and Cicero himself considered defending him. Catilina was found innocent, for what it's worth. Lodging such criminal charges is just another tool that Roman politicians use to embarrass a rival and disqualify him from running for office. Both the charge and the verdict are purely political; any link to truth or justice is purely coincidental.

"Then there were the more serious accusations and innuendoes — rumours of sexual scandal, incest, murder… but perhaps all this talk of politics is beginning to bore you.'

'Not at all!' Meto's wide eyes showed I had his full attention.

I cleared my throat. 'Very well. They say that back in the terrible days of Sulla the dictator, Catilina served as one of his henchmen, killing Sulla's enemies and bringing in their heads for the bounty. They say he got away with murdering his own brother-in-law that way; Catilina's sister wanted the man killed and Catilina did it in cold blood, then made it legal by listing the man as one of Sulla's enemies.'

'Is it true?'

I shrugged. 'Men did terrible things in Sulla's time. Crassus made himself rich by buying up murdered men's estates. When murder is made legal, you see the true capacity of men for wickedness. Perhaps the story about Catilina is true, perhaps not. He was brought to trial for one instance of murder, twenty years after the fact, and found innocent. Who knows? But these were only the first of his alleged murders.

'A few years ago, when he came back from Africa, Catilina took a new wife. They say the woman refused to wed Catilina if there was already an heir in his house, so he murdered his son. As for the young bride, she happens to be the daughter of one of Catilina's former mistresses — there are even those who say she's Catilina's daughter!'

'Incest!' whispered Meto.

'Cicero himself never said that word aloud, he only made the innuendo. And that is only the beginning of the list of Catilina's alleged sexual crimes. They claim he corrupted one of the Vestal Virgins in a great scandal ten years ago; about that I happen to know a little, because I was summoned to investigate the matter in secret. It's the only time I've ever had personal dealings with Catilina, and I found him a puzzlement — utterly charming and utterly suspicious. Cicero likes to remind his listeners of the scandal, but only to a point, since his wife's sister was the Vestal accused of fornicating with Catilina! Oh, in some ways Rome is quite a small town.'

'And did they? Catilina and the Vestal?' Meto was positively glowing with interest.

'That I don't know, though I have my suspicions. I'll tell you the full story some other time. At any rate, both Catilina and the Vestal won acquittal — which, as I told you, has little to do with guilt or innocence.'

'It sounds as if Catilina has spent most of his career defending himself in court, or else murdering people!'

'And the rest of the time he fornicates, if you believe the stories. His circle in Rome is said to be utterly dissolute; he charms the bright young men of Rome by pimping for them, and charms rich, aging matrons by guiding the same young men into their bedrooms; they say he occasionally takes the best-looking of the young men and the richest of the matrons for himself Certainly a contrast to Cicero! Say, do you want to hear a joke about Cicero that was going around during the campaign?'

'Yes.’

'Keep in mind this probably came from Catilina. You have to know that Cicero has a daughter who's thirteen, Tullia, and a son who's barely two, Marcus. Well, they say that Cicero hates sex so much that he's tried it only twice in his life. Tullia came of the first time, but he hated it as much as he thought he would. Eleven years later his wife nagged him into trying it again, and he agreed, just to be sure that it was as bad as he remembered — and the outcome was Marcus!'

Meto winced.

'Well, I suppose it's a rare boy who laughs at his father's jokes. But you should have heard them laughing in the taverns when they told that one on election day. But after the votes were counted, it was Cicero who laughed.'

'Did Catilina just tell jokes about Cicero, or did he try to defend himself against all those accusations?'

'Oddly enough, he didn't try. Perhaps the rumours are true, or true enough that he didn't care to repeat them, even to refute them. And then, Catilina is a patrician, and Cicero is a New Man — I think that Catilina was too haughty to step into the gutter with someone he considers so far beneath him. That's another tactic of Roman politicians, especially from old families — they wrap themselves in their dignity. But Catilina's haughtiness proved a cold garment. On election day Cicero was the clear winner by an overwhelming majority. It was a tremendous personal triumph for a man without ancestry, who created a political career by his own canniness and perseverance. The consulship is a pinnacle few men attain. Cicero has reached it. This is his glorious year, and no one can say he didn't earn it.'

'And Catilina?'

'Trailing far behind Cicero in the votes was Antonius, the nonentity. Catilina was a very close third, but third means nothing in a race for the consulship. In previous years one lawsuit after another kept Catilina from running. When he finally had his chance, Cicero trounced him. This year Catilina is running again. He was said to be heavily in debt when he ran last year. How much further into debt will this race drive him? He must be a desperate man, and if one can believe even a small part of the rumours, a man easily disposed to murder. Not the sort of man I would care to have as a guest under my roof.'

'I suppose not,' said Meto gravely, 'even to return Cicero's favour.' We sat for a while in silence, looking down on the farm. Suddenly Meto made an odd noise and began to shiver. He clutched himself so violently that I was alarmed — but he was only laughing, so uproariously that he rolled off the stump onto the grass, hugging himself.

'What in Hades—'

'Now I get it!' he gasped. 'Only twice in his life — and tried it the second time just to make sure it was as bad as he remembered!' He laughed so hard his face turned red

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help smiling. The law and society might say that he was almost a man, but it often seemed to me that Meto was still very much a boy.

IV

Dinner that night was not a success. Bethesda is not a bad cook, but cooking is among the least of her skills; cooking was certainly not the reason I bought her at the slave market in Alexandria those many years ago. A slave no longer — when she became pregnant with Diana I manumitted and married her — she was quite skilful in managing the labour of others, and to her I could leave the running of the household with complete confidence… except in the matter of the kitchen, where the egos of cooks were always colliding with her own. With Congrio lent to Claudia, Bethesda had taken advantage of the opportunity to exercise full sway in the kitchen.

Alas, her genius, so far as it went, was with simple foods such as she had served me in my leaner years (leaner in every sense), and particularly with fish, which were always to be had in quality and abundance at the markets in Rome, either freshly caught in the Tiber or brought upriver from the sea. At the farm good fish were harder to come by, and so, with a guest from the city to entertain, Bethesda had chosen to attempt something extravagant with the provisions on hand. She had overreached herself The celery and calf s brains with egg sauce was not up to Congrio's standards, and the asparagus stewed in wine might have succeeded had she chosen a less assertive vintage. (Such pretentious judgments about food I learned from the late Lucius Claudius.) The carrots with coriander were passable, and the potted peaches stewed with cumin at last provided a triumph I could sincerely compliment — which was a mistake.