Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'Yes. I had no chance to speak to him, either.'

I tried not to smile. 'Now, Bethesda, I understand your regret at missing a second opportunity to charm such a good-looking young man—'

She turned her face from the street. Her expression stopped me cold.

'Husband do you really think I would brood this way over a lost chance to flirt? What was Marcus Caelius doing in our house today?'

Her face was drawn, like a garment worn too tightly, and her eyes had a haunted look that turned my heart to water. She was not angry, but frightened.

'Bethesda!' I reached out to put my arm around her, but she shrugged off my embrace.

'Don't coddle me like a slave. Tell me why that man came to Meto's party. What did he want from you?'

‘Very well. He came, he said, to deliver apologies from Cicero for not coming in person.'

'Did he ask more favours of you?' When I hesitated to answer, Bethesda's eyes flashed. 'I knew it! What will he have us doing this time? Does this involve Catilina again?'

'Bethesda, I told Caelius in no uncertain terms that my obligation was already discharged.'

'And did that satisfy him?'

Again I hesitated, and the spark in her eyes ignited. 'I knew it! More trouble!'

'Not necessarily, Bethesda.'

'How can you say that! Do you know how I've worried since Diana found that horrible body in the stable? I will not have such things going on around us!'

'Then we should probably do whatever Caelius demands.'

'No!'

'Yes! Satisfy him — and whomever he really represents, whether it's Cicero or Catilina or—' For the first time it occurred to me that Caelius might actually be representing some other party.

'You must not deal with him,' Bethesda insisted.

'He asks very little.'

'So far! But it will come to something horrible. When we left the city, you said you would leave such things behind.'

'I did leave them, Bethesda. They followed me.' 'But this is different. This is not your way, to do things without knowing why. You've always been an open and honest man, even when you worked in secret.'

'That doesn't quite make sense, Bethesda.'

'You know what I mean!'

I sighed. 'Yes, I do. The duplicity that Caelius forces on me doesn't sit well with me, either. In truth, I dread it.' Without intention, as naturally as a child, I reached for her hand and twined my fingers with hers. 'I'm frightened, too, Bethesda. Frightened and dismayed and a little disgusted — and proud and elated and sentimental, because this is Meto's toga day! If only our lives could be one thing at a time, instead of this mad jumble’

It was my turn to become pensive and watch the street pass by. 'Bethesda, when I was young and beginning to make my way in the world pursuing the work that my father did, there was one thing he made me promise that I would never do — use my skills to capture runaway slaves. It was an easy promise for me to make, and I've never broken it, for I have no appetite for such work. Over the years I added another promise to myself— that I would not become a spy for the state, or ever become a dictator's secret policeman if the Republic should fall prey to another Sulla, Jupiter forbid.

'There are times when I have done things of which I'm not particularly proud, and times when distinguishing right from wrong has confounded me — thus did the gods make this world, of multiple uncertainties and questions without answers. But I've always been able to sleep at night and to look at myself in a mirror without shame. Now I find myself compelled to be a spy, or at least to consort with spies, and I'm not even certain for whom I'm working. Am I the agent of Cicero and the Optimates, which is to say the state? Or am I the unwitting tool of Catilina, who would surely make himself a dictator if he could, for how else can be bring about the changes he promises his disinherited and disenfranchised followers? In the end, I tell myself, I don't care so long as my family is left in peace — and my own cynicism distresses me! Am I wise, or merely apathetic — or a coward?'

Bethesda looked at me steadily and squeezed my hand. 'You are not a coward.'

'Ah, but I don't hear you reassuring me that I'm wise!'

She cooled a bit and slid her hand from mine. She rested her chin on her knuckles and gazed out at the street. She spoke in a tone that was at once detached and determined and that allowed no contradiction. 'In your own heart you know what I know: that something terrible looms over us. I'm a woman, what can I do? Meto is barely a man. Eco, too, is very young and has his own life here in the city. It is up to you, husband. All up to you.'

I blinked and sighed, and wondered: was this woman ever really my slave?

The litters deposited us at the eastern end of the Forum, not far from the Senian Baths. By custom, the women stayed behind to await our return. Meto set foot upon the Sacred Way wearing a happy smile along with his toga. Whatever he had been talking about with Rufus, it must have been on happier topics than my conversation with Bethesda.

Led by Rufus in his augur's vestments, our little party made its way through the very heart of Rome. Amid the throngs of vendors, voters, politicians, and vagrants, we passed the House of the Pontifex Maximus, where young Caesar now held office, and the adjoining House of the Vestal Virgins, the scene of Catilina's indiscretion ten years before. We passed the Temple of Vesta, where the sacred fire burns eternally in the hearth of the goddess, and the Temple of Castor and Pollux, where the scales and measures of the state are kept. We passed the tribunal of the commissioners, where justice had been served in the case of Asuvius and the forged will — my first adventure with Lucius Claudius. We came to the Rostra, the orator's platform decorated with the beaks of ships captured in war, from which politicians harangue the masses, and advocates argue their cases before the courts of law. Here young Cicero had pleaded the case that established his career, defending Sextus Roscius from the charge of parricide; I served as his investigator. At that time, a great equestrian statue of the dictator Sulla dominated the square, but no longer; the Senate had ordered it removed only a few years ago. Behind the Rostra stood the Senate House, where today Cicero, as consul of Rome, would be arguing for another postponement of the consular election, and Catilina would be defending himself from charges of disrupting the state.

The square was thronged with people. A politician was speaking from the Rostra to an audience of voters — one of the Optimates' candidates for consul, to judge from his rhetoric, though I couldn't tell whether it was Murena or Silanus — but there were plenty of other speakers all around to vie for the voters' ears. Wherever a flight of steps or a wall allowed a man to stand and be seen above the crowd, there appeared to be a politician addressing anyone within hearing. In places the discourse seemed to be more a debate than an address, with members of the crowd shouting questions or accusations at the speaker or even booing him from his platform. Within the crowd, insults were hurled, men were spat upon, and scuffles erupted here and there. Rome on the eve of an election!

Obviously, the larger a speaker's retinue, the greater his security and the more effective his rhetoric, and so each politician was surrounded by as many of his supporters as he could muster, not to mention freedmen, slaves, and bodyguards. The square had the appearance of warring factions intermingling for no discernible reason, except to cheer for their own favourite and jeer at the others. The threat of violence hung heavy in the air; I thought of a seething pot on the verge of boiling.

With Rufus at its head, our retinue commanded respect. His saffron-striped trabea was immediately recognizable; men parted and made way for the augur. Many in the crowd knew him by name, and hailed him cheerfully; his youth and charm, unusual for an augur, no doubt contributed to his popularity. Mummius, too, cut a familiar and popular figure with the crowd; people still remembered his role in putting down the Spartacan slave revolt, and his more recent service with Pompey earned him even more respect.