Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'Oh, Gordianus, I know that you find your old friend Cicero a bit pompous and vain; you always have. You have a sharp, unforgiving eye for anything pretentious — that's one of your gifts — and I confess that in my success I have grown perhaps a bit too overbearing and self-important. You see through the veils of men's vanity. How can you not see through Catilina at once? Could it be that his conceit is so enormous, so monstrous, that you simply can't perceive it, the way that a man who looks at the sea cannot see a drop of water? Has he seduced you, Gordianus?'

'You're talking nonsense, Cicero. But at least your metaphors are consistent — you have me completely at sea.'

He paused and looked at me shrewdly. When he lowered his head that way, the thick fold of fat in his neck pressed up against his chin like a pillow, and his eyes seemed to recede into the puffiness of his cheeks. I thought of how he had looked when I first met him — thin, almost frail, with a neck that seemed barely sturdy enough to hold up his broad-browed head. His girth had grown with his ambition.

'Oh, I can imagine how he went to work on you, Gordianus. Catilina can see into other men's hearts. He senses their needs and desires, and he plays on that knowledge like a piper. Tell me if I hit the mark. He sees at once how to flatter you — he compliments your farm and family. He takes note of your unorthodox household, senses you have a soft spot for the disenfranchised and dispossessed, and so he tells you he is a man of the people, too, and wants to shake things up at Rome to give the wretched masses a better chance in life. He rails against the unfairness of the Optimates and their devious ways — never mind that Catilina would be an Optimate himself if he hadn't squandered his reputation along with his fortune and earned the disdain of every decent man in the Senate. Having insinuated himself into your personal life and warmed you with his politics, especially tailored to suit your own, he then confides some personal secret to you and you alone, letting you see that he trusts you implicitly, that you are very special to him.'

I thought of Catilina's confession regarding the Vestal Fabia and felt a prickle of discomfort.

'Catilina will tell you whatever you want to hear. Catilina will be your special confidant, Catilina will cast his spell over you with your eyes wide open, if you let him. I admit it: Catilina is channing. For years I thought so myself, until I saw through him.

'While I, alas, am utterly without charm. Don'tyou think I know this? You have shown your hostility to me very clearly tonight, Gordianus. You find me irritating and overbearing, and you wish I would simply go away. I annoy you. I have no charm, and I never have had; I was born without it and it cannot be counterfeited. That's precisely why I must rely on rhetoric and persuasion — clumsy tools next to the natural charm of a man like Catilina, who is halfway to winning an argument before he says a word, thanks to that handsome face and that endearing, irresistible, infuriating smile of his. Beside him I must seem very crude and shrill. But think, Gordianus! What is the value of charm if it hides the ugly truth? I speak that ugly truth and you wrinkle your nose. Catilina smiles and murmurs pretty lies and you find himintriguing. Gordianus, you know better!'

What can be worse, for a man of my age, than to begin to doubt his own judgment? Had Catilina cast a spell over me, made me dull and dreamy? Or was it Cicero who was practising his own wicked magic, using what he knew of Catilina and of me to find the exact words that would disconcert me and bend me to his will?

'Do my words make sense to you, Gordianus? Do you hear the urgency in my voice? Will you not continue to render the single favour I ask of you, to play host to Catilina when he desires it? Do this for the good of Rome. Do this for the sake of your children.'

When I didn't answer, Cicero sighed and slumped his shoulders. Was he acting, or was he genuinely weary? And why could I not tell for certain — I, who possessed such a sharp, unforgiving eye for pretence?

"Think on it, Gordianus. When you go back to that lovely, peaceful farm, think on it and remember that Rome is still here, in terrible danger. And if Rome burns, never doubt that the conflagration will spread across the countryside.' He lowered his face, thickening the fold of fat in his neck. He studied me for a long moment, but I had nothing to say. 'I won't see you face to face again, not until the crisis is resolved. Marcus Caelius will be my messenger, as before. It was a risk, coming to see you here tonight, but my watchers tell me that Catilina's eyes are elsewhere this evening, and Caelius told me that you were wavering, and I hoped that I might prevail upon your better judgment if I could speak to you man to man.' He turned away. The stiff folds of his toga rusded softly in the still, warm air of the garden.

'I’ll go now. There are many calls I must pay tonight before I sleep. No one is safe with Catilina's rabble rioting in the streets, but I can't let that deter me. I know my duty to Rome; I only wish it were as easy and simple as yours.' With that he departed.

I sat on a bench by the fountain. The sky was dark and the stars were bright overhead. The moon had begun to rise, its silver light glinting across the tiled roof of the portico. 'You may come out now, Meto,' I said softly.

He stepped from behind the curtain to his room and into the shadows of the portico.

'Did Bethesda hear?' I said.

'No. I could hear her snoring now arid then through the wall.' He stepped into the moonlight. He was wearing only his loincloth. It occurred to me that he was of an age to begin wearing more clothing about the house.

'Good. Eco and Menenia seem to be asleep, or else too busy to have paid any attention to voices from the garden. Only you and I know of Cicero's visit.'

'How did you know I was listening? I was so careful not to make the curtain move.'

'Yes, but the big toe on your left foot showed beneath the curtain's edge. A bit of starlight glinted on your toenail. In the wrong circumstances such carelessness could be fatal.'

'Do you think Cicero noticed?' he asked.

I had to laugh. 'I don't think so. Otherwise he'd have summoned his bodyguards from outside and you'd have been full of daggers before I could've said a word.'

Meto looked alarmed, then sceptical.

'Well, what do you think of our esteemed consul, Meto?'

He hesitated for a moment. ‘I think Cicero is a windbag.'

I smiled. 'So do I, but that doesn't mean he's not telling the truth.'

'Will you do what he wants, then?' I was so long in answering that Meto asked again, will you, Papa?' 'I only wish I knew.'

XXIII

After the election we spent five more days in Rome. I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would, strolling about the seven hills, seeing old friends, savouring the delicacies of the food vendors in the markets, observing the comings and goings of every sort of man and woman through the streets of the Subura and feeling swallowed up by the never-ending pulse of life in the great city.

Not all was pleasure. One morning, while Bethesda browsed in the shops on the Street of the Silversmiths, I consulted with the advocate who was defending my rights to the stream against Publius Claudius's challenge. His name was Volumenus, and his office was on the second floor of a squat, ugly brick building just a stone's throw from the Forum. The whole building was populated by lawyers and breathed the musty smell of old parchment. The walls of Volumenus's cramped little office were covered with scrolls in pigeonholes. He was rather like a scroll himself, tall and straight with a long face and a very dry manner.

No progress had been made towards having the matter of my water rights heard by the courts, he told me, though he assured me he was doing all he could on my behalf