Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

At another point in his career Lentulus was brought to trial for some malfeasance or other, and was acquitted with a plurality of two judges voting in his favour. Later he was heard complaining that he had wasted his money by bribing one judge too many. A scoundrel, as I have said, but not without a sense of humour.

The scandals surrounding him did not prevent him from attaining

the praetorship and finally the consulship; unfortunately, he was elected to the office at the worst possible time, during the slave revolt led by Spartacus. Virtually everyone in power at the time was discredited by the state's faltering attempts to contain the rebel slaves; an orgy of recriminations and finger-pointing erupted when Spartacus was finally defeated. A year after his consulship, bereft of allies and vulnerable to his political enemies, Lentulus was expelled from the Senate on charges of misconduct. This time he showed his fellow senators not his bony leg but the back of his bowed head as he departed in disgrace.

But Lentulus persevered. At a time in life when most men would have been crushed by such a humiliation and too weary to recover, he reentered the electoral fray, beginning at the bottom like a young man. A year ago he was elected to a praetorship, more than ten years after his first term as a praetor, and thus won readmission to the Senate. Sheer brazenness had fuelled his re-emergence, but he possessed many other assets — the distinguished patrician name of Cornelius; a populist pedigree handed down by a famous grandfather who died sixty years ago in the anti-Gracchan riots; his marriage to the ambitious Julia, kinswoman of Julius Caesar, with whom he was raising her young son Marcus Antonius; and not least, a seemingly lazy but shrewdly calculated oratorical style which imparted the full charm of his jaundiced sense of humour and his compelling ambition.

'What are the man's motives in conspiring against the state?' I asked. 'After all, he's recovered his senatorial rank. He could actually run for consul again.'

'With no hope of ever winning. Behind his jaded sense of humour there's a great store of bitterness, and a burning impatience. Here's a man who had to start over at the middle of his life; he's eager for a shortcut to reach his destiny.'

'His destiny?'

'There seems to be something new in his character of late: a weakness for fortune-tellers. It seems there are some rather shady soothsayers. They've regaled Lentulus with verses purportedly from the Sibylline books that prophesy that three men of the Cornelius family will rule Rome. We all know of two — Cinna and Sulla. Who could be the third?'

'These soothsayers tell Lentulus outright that he's to be dictator?'

'Nothing as obvious as that. Oh, these fortune-tellers are clever. You know how the Sibylline verses are said to be written in acrostic, with the first letters of each line spelling out hidden words? Well, what do you think the first letters of these particular verses spell?'

I pursed my lips. 'Does it begin with an L?'

'Exactly: L-E-N-T-U-L-U-S. Naturally, they didn't point this out to Lentulus, but left him to notice it for himself. Now he's convinced that he's meant by the gods to rule Rome.'

'He's mad,' I said. 'I see what you mean by delusions. Still, a man like that, having risen so high, fallen so low, and risen again — he must feel that Fortune has some special role in store for him.' I stretched my legs on the grass and gazed up at the sun-spangled leaves. 'So Lentulus is the "leg" on which Catilina stands?'

Eco winced. 'The chief leg, yes, but as with most bodies there are two. The other is not quite so strong.'

' "Why does Catilina's conspiracy limp?" Please, no more riddles concerning body parts!'

'Even so, the second leg is another senator of the Cornelius clan, Gaius Cornelius Cethegus.'

'No nickname?'

'Not yet. Perhaps he's too young to have acquired one. If he did, it might be Hotheaded.'

'Young, you say, but if he's in the Senate he must be at least thirty-two.'

'Barely. Like Catilina and Lentulus, a patrician, with all the trappings. Men are different who are brought up from infancy to think so highly of themselves.'

'Yes, they are,' I agreed, thinking of Catilina's effortless poise and self-assurance, and thinking also of how an ambitious New Man like Cicero must envy and despise that natural, unaffected assumption of superiority.

'Like Lentulus, Cethegus is of the Cornelius clan, with many powerful connections by blood and ancient obligation. But he lacks Lentulus's long-suffering perseverance; he's young, impetuous, impatient, with a reputation for violence. He's not very effective in the Senate; he's not a very good orator — he itches for action, and words make him restless. He's also had a falling-out with his immediate family; he has an older brother, also in the Senate, with whom he hardly speaks. They say there was a bitter dispute over inheritance. Cethegus beHeves himself to have been slighted, not just by his family, but by the Fates.'

'An ideal candidate for revolution. He sounds sane enough, if not very charming.'

'He casts a spell nonetheless, over those who are susceptible. He appeals to well-born young men like himself who distrust rhetoric and hate the slow hand of politics, who find themselves shut out by the Optimates and who lack the money to launch successful careers but have a craving for power nonetheless.'

I picked up a twig and poked at the ground. "These are the principal conspirators?’

'Yes. Lentulus because of his perseverance, Cethegus because of his energy and daring.'

"These are the legs, you said.' I scratched two lines in the dirt. 'And Catilina is the head.' I drew a circle. 'But between legs and head there must be a trunk. Not to mention arms, hands, and feet.'

'I thought you'd had enough of physical metaphors.'

I shrugged. 'And I thought I wanted to know none of this, but I'm asking you nonetheless.'

'Very well. The trunk would be the people of Rome, of course. If Catilina could persuade them to follow him, if Lentulus and Cethegus could carry the plot forward, then the body would be powerful indeed. As for the arms and hands, there are a number of men in regular contact with Catilina and his friends — senators, equestrians, men who were once rich and now are not, men who are rich and want to be richer, as well as common citizens and freedmen. There are some who seem to be attracted by the simple excitement and danger of the enterprise, and others who seem to be fascinated by Catilina himself I suspect there are even a few high-minded idealists who think they are about to change the world.'

'Eco, you've become as jaded as your father. Perhaps they are about to change the world, though who can say if for better or worse. Names, Eco!'

He recited a lengthy list. Some of the names were familiar. Others were not. 'But you will know the names of Publius and Servius Sulla,' he said.

'The dictator's grandsons?'

'The same.'

' "How are the mighty fallen" ' I said, quoting one of Bethesda's Eastern maxims. 'Unless they land on their feet.'

"The Sullan connection runs deep. Among Catilina's most fervent adherents are the dictator's old soldiers who were settled in farming colonies up north. Most of them have fallen on hard times; they chafe at the yoke, so to speak, recalling the grand old days campaigning with their master in the East and helping him wm the civil war at home. Once all the world was at their feet; now they find themselves knee-deep in mud and manure. They think that Rome owes them better than they received. Now that their current champion, Catilina, has lost his bid to become consul, not once but twice, they may be ready to take up arms for what they want. They're busy rummaging behind ploughs to find their old armour; they're polishing their breastplates and greaves, sharpening their swords, fixing new points on their spears.'