Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'Speaking of fashion,' said Catilina, 'I understand that in my honour the whole Senate staged some sort of ceremony to put off their normal togas and put on special clothing for the duration of the crisis, and have admonished the populace to do likewise. Is that true?'

'Eco mentioned something about it in a letter,' I said dully, staring at the bits of armour. I suddenly felt lightheaded.

'Imagine that! Well, they're always corning up with these ancient ceremonies and customs that no one alive can remember. Some are rather ridiculous, but I rather like this one. I've always been called an arbiter of fashion, and this proves it; I've even got stodgy Cato to change his outfit!'

I lifted my eyes and stared at him. He shook his head.

'No, Gordianus, I'm not mad. But an epigram always relaxes me before a battle.'

'A battle?’

'Within the hour, I imagine. Manlius and Tongilius are gathering the troops to hear me speak. You arrived just in time. Imagine, if you had missed my speech — you'd never be able to forgive yourself! Even so, if you wish to take your leave beforehand, so as to have a head start on eluding the carnage, I won't hold it against you.'

'But here, now—'

'Yes! The moment has arrived. I had hoped to postpone it once again, to buy a little more time. It was my intention to cross these mountains and somehow get to Gaul, taking back roads to evade battle, fighting our way through the passes if we had to, surviving the snowstorms if we could. But when we reached the pass up above, what do you think we saw waiting for us on the other side? Another Roman army. I decided to come back down and face this one. It's commanded by the consul Antonius, you see. He was once sympathetic to my cause. I hear that Cicero bought him off by giving up the governorship he was due at the end of his consulship and letting Antonius have it instead. Still, you never know; Antonius might decide to join me at the last moment. Yes, Gordianus, I know that's impossible, but don't say so aloud! No more ill omens within the tent, if you please. But look here, just as I said: your son returns.'

Meto stood at the entrance. 'I've come to put on my armour,' he said.

'Here, help me with mine first. It will take only a moment.' Catilina stood and raised his arms while Meto fitted a breastplate around him and tightened it, then attached a long crimson cape. He picked up a gilded helmet with a splendid red plume and placed it on Catilina's head.

'There!' said Catilina, observing his reflection in a burnished plate. 'Don't tell Tongilius I let you dress me; he'll be jealous of the honour.' He took his eyes from the mirror and looked at each of us in turn, a long, steady gaze such as one gives to friends before leaving on a long journey. 'I'll leave you alone now. Don't be long.'

Meto watched him depart, then walked to the cot where his armour lay.

'Meto—'

'Here, Papa, help me. Would you bring my breastplate? Somehow it ended up across the room'

I picked it up and went to him. He lifted his arms. 'Meto—'

'It's simpler than it looks. Line up the leather laces with the buckles and fasten the top pair on either side to begin with.' I did as he said, as if I moved in a dream.

'Forgive me for deceiving you, Papa. I couldn't think of any other way.'

'Meto, we must leave this place at once.' 'But this is where I belong.' 'I'm asking you to come home with me.' 'I decline.'

. 'And if I command you as your father?'

His breastplate fully fastened, Meto drew back and looked at me with an expression at once sad and rebellious. 'But you are not my father’ 'Oh, Meto,' I groaned.

'My father was a slave I never knew, as I was a slave’ 'Until I freed you and adopted you!'

One at a time he put his feet on the cot to fasten his greaves into place. 'Yes, the law calls you my father, and by law you have the right to command me, or even to kill me for disobeying you. But we both know that in the eyes of the gods you're not really my father. I have none of your blood in my veins. I'm not even Roman, but Greek, or some mongrel mixture—'

‘You're my son!'

Then I'm a man as well, a free citizen, and I've made my own choice’

'Meto, think of those who love you. Bethesda, Eco, Diana—' From without we heard a trumpet blast.

"That's the signal for Catilina's speech. I have to be there. You should probably leave now, while you still have time, Papa—' He bit his tongue, as if to take back what he had called me, then quickly finished outfitting himself. When he was done, he looked at himself in the burnished plate and seemed gravely pleased. He turned to face me. 'Well, what do you think?' he said, with a trace of shyness.

You see, you are my son. I thought; why else do you seek my praise? But out loud I snapped at him, 'What does it matter?' He lowered his eyes and his cheeks turned red, and now it was my turn to bite my tongue; it would have been worse if I had told him what I truly thought, for as I looked at him dressed in his gleaming, mismatched armour, what I saw was a little boy outfitted in a make-believe costume, pretending to go to war. The idea that others could look at him and see a real soldier, fit to be killed if they could manage it, sent a chill through my heart.

'I can't miss the speech,' he said, walking quickly past me. I followed him out of the tent and across the camp, to a place where a depression in the rocky hillside formed a natural amphitheatre. We worked our way through the dense crowd until we were close enough to see. There was a blare of trumpets to quiet the crowd, and then Catilina stepped forward, resplendent in his armour and wearing a sombre smile on his face.

'No speech from a commander, no matter how rousing or eloquent, ever made a coward brave, or turned a sluggish army into a keen one, or gave men who had no cause to fight a reason to do so. Yet it is the custom for a commander to give his troops a speech before a battle, and so I will.

'One reason for a speech, I suppose, is that in many armies, most of the soldiers have seldom laid eyes on the man who supposedly leads them, much less have spoken to him or been spoken to by him, and so a speech is thought to establish a certain bond. That justification for a speech does not apply here today, for I doubt there is a single man among you whom I haven't personally greeted and welcomed to the ranks of this army, or with whom I haven't shared some moment of hardship or triumph in this struggle. Yet it is the custom for a commander to give his troops a speech before a battle, and so I will.

'I said before that mere words cannot put courage into a man. Every man has a certain degree of boldness, I believe, either inborn or cultivated by training; so much, and no more, does he generally exhibit in battle. If a man is not already stirred by the prospect of glory or by immediate danger, then it is merely a waste of breath to exhort him with rhetoric; fear in the heart makes deaf the ears. Yet it is the custom for a commander to give his troops a speech before a battle, and so I will.'

How peculiar, I thought, for a Roman orator to begin a speech by deriding its importance, to satirize an oration even while orating it, to be unabashedly honest before a crowd of listeners!

Catilina's expression became sombre. 'I will set before you as plainly as I can the prospect we face together, and the stakes for which we fight.

'You know how our allies in Rome have failed us, what a lack of judgment and enterprise was shown by Lentulus and his friends, and how disastrous it has been for themselves and for us. Our present predicament is as obvious to all of you as it is to me. Two enemy armies now bar our way, one between us and Gaul, the other between us and Rome. To remain where we are is impossible, for we have run short of grain and other supplies. Whichever path we decide to take, we must use our swords to cut our way through.