Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

'I suppose it would reHeve my anxiety to a degree if you would explain to me the exact circumstances of your involvement,' I finally said. 'What is Catilina really up to?'

'What Marcus Caelius says is true: Catilina and his colleagues are compiling to bring down the state. They had hoped he would win the election, in which case he would commence his revolution from the top, using his consular powers and the powers of his friends in the Senate to bring about their radical reforms by law if they could, and by civil war if they couldn't. That was the route Catilina himself preferred. He seems to have thought he had a genuine chance of being elected. Now that the only course remaining to him is an armed revolt, Catilina hesitates. He finds himself ringed in by doubt and uncertainty.' 'I sympathize,' I said, under my breath.

'So far, the conspirators have done nothing illegal, or at least nothing that could incriminate them. They put nothing in writing. They meet in secret, sub rosa.' Eco smiled. 'Catilina is quite literal-minded about it; he actually hangs a rose from the ceiling in any room where his friends conspire, to remind them that the rose means silence and that their words must never reach the world beyond. Still, Cicero knows eveiything they do.'

'Because you spy for him.'

'I'm hardly alone. And I'm only a lowly spy, not a member of Catilina's inner circle. I belong to an outer tier of men he thinks he can trust and who, he thinks, may be valuable when the crisis comes. Still, I hear a great deal, and I'm good at sorting the truth from all the fantastic rumours woven through it. These people are full of grand delusions; sometimes I wonder if they pose any danger at all'

'Don't tell Cicero that! It's not what he wants to hear.'

Eco sighed. 'Papa, you're impossibly cynical.'

'No, that describes Cicero. Don't you see that he craves the role this crisis gives him? If there were no conspiracy against the state, I think he'd invent one.'

Eco gritted his teeth. We were again on the brink of a rupture. I drew back. 'Give me details,' I said. ‘Who are these conspirators? Do I know them? Who else spies for Cicero?'

'Do you really want me to tell you these things? Once spoken, they can't be unspoken. I thought you wanted to wash your hands of Rome.'

'Better to know than not know.'

'But secrets are dangerous. Whoever possesses them takes on the burden of keeping them. Do you really want that responsibility?'

'I want to know what company my son is keeping. I want to know who threatens my family, and why.'

'Then you've given up on hiding your head in the sand?'

I sighed. 'The feathers of the ostrich are highly prized, but easy to pluck. Burying his head in a hole gives him no room to manoeuvre.'

'And leaves his long neck exposed to daggers,' said Eco. 'A sharp observation.'

'A sharper pun.' We both winced, then laughed. I reached out and clutched his hand for a moment. 'Oh, Eco, you say these conspirators are deluded, but not half so deluded as I've been, imagining. I could escape from Rome. No one can! Ask any slave who's fled all the way to the Pillars of Hercules or the Parthian border, only to be trapped and carted back to his master in a cage. We're all slaves of Rome, no matter how we're born, no matter what the law says. Only one thing makes men free: the truth. I've tried to turn my back on the truth, thinking that by ignorance I could escape the Fates. I should have known better. A man can't turn his back on his own nature. I've lived my lite searching for justice, knowing how rare it is and how hard it is to find, — still, if we can't find justice, sometimes we can at least find the truth and be satisfied with that. Now I've given up on justice altogether, and I even seem to have lost my appetite, not to mention my instinct, for finding the truth, until I despair of ever finding it again; but to give up on that search is to be utterly lost.' I sighed and shut my eyes against the brightness of the shimmering leaves above. 'Do these rumblings make any sense to you, Eco? Or am I too old, and you too young?'

I opened my eyes to see him smiling sadly at me. 'I think you sometimes forget how much alike we are, Papa.'

'Perhaps I do, especially when we're apart. When you're with me, I'm a stronger, better man.'

'No son could ask for more. I only wish you felt the same…' His voice trailed off and he bit his Hp, but I knew he was thinking of another who was not with us — of Meto, up in the house with his mother and sister, excluded once again from his father's counsel.

XXVIII

'So,' I said, making myself comfortable on the grass, 'tell me all you know of Catilina and his circle.'

Eco made a rueful expression.

'I accept the responsibility of knowing,' I said.

'It's not only you I'm thinking of but myself. If word ever got back to Catilina that there had been a breach in his secrecy and that I was responsible—'

‘You know you can trust me to keep quiet.'

He sighed and settled his hands on his knees, locking his elbows. I recognized the posture as if I looked in the mirror. 'Very well. To begin with, there are more of them than you might think. Cicero and Caelius always speak as if their enemies were legion, but you know how Cicero tends to exaggerate.'

'Cicero exaggerate?' I said, feigning shock.

'Exacdy. But in this case, he has good reason to be alarmed.'

'What exactly are these conspirators conspiring to do?'

'That remains unclear, probably even among themselves, but some sort of armed insurrection is definitely in their plans, and Cicero's death is their first priority.'

'Do you mean to say that all those bodyguards and that absurd breastplate were not just for show? I thought it was merely a vulgar display to frighten the voters.'

'I'm not so certain that Catilina wanted Cicero dead before the elections, at least not badly enough to actually plot his assassination. If Catilina had won the consulship, things might have gone very differently. But now the conspirators are all resolved on one point, if on nothing else: that Cicero must beeliminated, partly from revenge, partly as a lesson to others who serve the Optimates, partly as a practical matter.'

'Who are these men? Name names.'

'There's Catilina himself, of course. Everywhere he goes nowadays he's attended by a young man named Tongilius.'

'I know them both, from the time they spent under my roof. Who else?'

'Chief among them, after Catilina, is Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura.'

'Lentulus? "Legs" Lentulus? Not that old reprobate!' 'The very one.'

'Well, Catilina has chosen a colourful enough character for his chief conspirator. You know the man's history?'

'Everyone does within Catilina's circle. And like you, they smile at the mention of his name.'

'He's an old charmer, I won't deny that. I did some work for him myself, six or seven years ago, right after he was expelled from the Senate. Everything about the man cried out "scoundrel", but I couldn't help liking him. I suspect his fellow senators liked him, in a begrudging sort of way, even as they were voting to expel him from their ranks. Does anyone call him "Legs" to his face?'

'Only his fellow patricians,' said Eco.

Sura is the nickname, meaning the calf of the leg, that had been earned by Lentulus in the days of Sulla's dictatorship, when Lentulus held the office of quaestor. A rather substantial sum of state money disappeared under Lentulus's administration. The Senate called on him to explain the matter. In response, Lentulus came forth and in an offhand and contemptuous manner stated that he had no account to render (the accounts being empty), but that he would offer them this — whereupon he stuck out his leg, as boys do when they play trigon and miss the ball. Lentulus got away with his show of contempt, thanks in no small part to his kinship with Sulla, under whose dictatorship a mere crime of embezzlement was child's play, but the nickname stuck.