Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'The excitement of the day, then,' I suggested.

He was silent for a long moment 'Papa, I'm a man now.'

'I know, Meto.'

'I'm not a boy any longer.'

'Yes, Meto, I know.'

'Then why do you still treat me like a boy?' 'Because — what do you mean?'

‘You hide things from me. You talk behind my back. You tell Eco everything; you share everything with him.' 'Because Eco is…'

'Because Eco is a man, and I am a boy.'

'No, Meto, it's not that.'

'Because Eco was born free and I wasn't.'

'Not that, either,' I said, wearily shaking my head.

‘But I am a man, Papa. The law says so, and so do the gods. Why don't you believe it?'

I looked at his smooth, unblemished cheeks, the colour of white roses in the moonlight, which the barber had shaved for the first time that day. I looked at his slender arms and narrow chest, as smooth and hairless as a girl's. But his arms were not really as slender as I had thought; in a year's time the work of the farm had put some muscle into them. Nor was his chest any longer the flat, narrow chest of a child; it had begun to broaden and take shape. The moonlight clearly etched the square prominence of his pectorals and the ridges of his belly. His legs were still long for his body, but they were not spindly; his calves and thighs were hard with muscle.

When had this happened? It was as if I gazed at a stranger beneath the moonlight, or as if the moon itself had transformed him in that moment before my eyes.

'You treat me like a child, Papa. You know this is true. This whole matter of not wanting me to go inside the Senate House—'

"That had nothing to do with you, Meto. It was my own aversion.'

'But what about the body we found in the stables? You treated me the same way you treated Diana.'

'I did not. I sent her away, but to you I showed what one could learn from observing the corpse — although, as I remember, you were almost too squeamish to look.'

'But I did look! And I'm not talking about letting me study the body with you. I'm talking about afterwards, when you began to brood over it. You never confided in me. You sent for Eco to come all the way from Rome so that you could share your thoughts with him.'

‘I didn't send for Eco.'

"That's not what he says.'

'Oh, I see, the two of you have been talking behind my back.' 'Confiding in each other, Papa, as brothers should. And as I wish you would confide in me. Because I am a man now.

Because you need me, to help protect you and Mother and Diana—'

'Protect me!’ The image of the little boy I met in Baiae protecting me from some hulking assassin was so absurd that I shook my head. It was my duty to protect him, as I always had. Of course, he was not really so little any more. But I was still stronger than he was, at least I thought so, though he might be faster, and his stamina might be greater than mine.

'Your body has changed, Meto, that's true, but in other ways—'

'In other ways I'm still a child. I know that's what you think, but where is your evidence?' These words rang strangely in my ears. Where had he picked them up? 'It's just not true, Papa. You don't know what sort of things I think about when I'm alone. I worry, too, about the body we found, and Catilina coming to our house, and the terrible things happening in Rome. I saw Marcus Caelius talking to you at the party today. I saw the look on your face. What were you talking about? What did he want? Why don't you tell me, so that I can help? You'll tell Eco, won't you?'

'Oh, Meto, how can I ask for your help when I don't know myself what needs to be done?'

'But that's just it, Papa Perhaps ‘ might think of something.'

He lifted his face into the moonlight-and in that moment he no longer looked transformed at all. He was a mere child again, gangly and awkward, earnest and innocent and eager to please. I could barely resist an urge to reach out and tousle his hair. How could I treat him as something he was not?

'Papa, I ask for your respect. Whatever danger faces us, I want to know about it. I want to do my part. I want to be included. I have the right to expect that, now that I'm a man. Can't you understand?'

'Yes, Meto, I understand.'

'And you'll treat me differently in the future?'

I took a deep breath. 'I shall try.'

'Good. Then we can begin by going to see the election tomorrow.' 'Oh, Meto,' I groaned.

'But, Papa, how can I learn if I can't see with my own eyes? That's why today was so extraordinary. Going into the Senate House, hearing him speak — I shall never forget it!'

'Hearing Cicero?'

'No, Catilina! It meant even more to me than the ceremony at the

Auguraculum. I must see what happens tomorrow.' He lowered his eyes. 'I could go alone—'

'Never! Gangs, knives, riots—'

'Then we shall go together?'

I wrinkled my brow. 'I shall sleep on it.'

'Papa…'

'Oh, very well.' I sighed. 'If you must see Rome at her worst…'

"Thank you, Papa!' He gripped my hands in his and then departed for bed. A few moments later I did the same, since I would not be sleeping late after all.

When I was a boy, the northwestern portion of the city outside the Servian Wall, called the Field of Mars, was still largely undeveloped. Chariot racers trained their horses and military units practised their drills on the unobstructed plain, with so much room that they did not even have to breathe one another's clouds of dust. At the far end of the Field, above a sweeping bend in the River Tiber, are the medicinal hot springs at Tarentum, where my father liked to go to ease his joints; I remember walking to the springs through wooded areas where goats chewed the grass alongside the road, with hardly a house in sight, as if one were in the country. Perhaps my boyish eyes exaggerated these pastoral expanses.

Of course, the southern portion of the Field of Mars nearest the Servian Wall has long been built up. The morning shadows of the Capitoline Hill have for many years fallen across warehouses and wharves on the Tiber, the teeming vegetable markets of the Forum Holitorium, crowded tenements, and the cluster of shops and baths around the Circus Flaminius, still the most conspicuous structure anywhere outside the Servian Wall. Even so, in my lifetime I have seen the entire Field of Mars become much more developed — more warehouses have gone up on the river, new and taller tenements have been squeezed between the old ones, the few remaining groves have been cleared and built over, new roads have been laid out. The chariot racers and drilling soldiers have been pressed closer together, so that their clouds of dust mingle in the air. The road to Tarentum is no longer like a brief respite in the countryside, but is surrounded by city all the way. There are even rumours that Pompey, having secured a large tract of public land in the heart of the Field of Mars, is planning to build a great theatre of stucco and marble. This has excited great controversy, for if built, the structure will be the first permanent theatre in Rome, a city where makeshift stages erected for festivals have always been deemed more proper than the temple-like theatres of the decadent, drama-worshipping Greeks.

Because it lies outside the city walls, and because of its flat expanse (as compared to the city's seven hills and the valleys between them), the Field of Mars has from very early days been the gathering place for assemblies too large (and often too unruly) to be accommodated in the Forum. From the time of the founding of the Republic, Romans have gathered there to do their voting.

So it was, very early the next morning, that Meto and I set out for the Field of Mars. I decided to take Belbo with us; if Cicero was right in his prediction of violence, I wanted a bodyguard. We ate a hurried but extravagant breakfast of leftovers from the party and took a bundle of food and a skin of watered wine with us. The sky was pale with dawn as we made our way through the Subura towards the Fontinal Gate. There were already groups of men in the street, all heading in the same direction. We were just passing through the gate when I heard the trumpets being blown to call the people to assemble.