Steven Saylor - Catilina's riddle

Caesar was young and virile, Nicomedes exuded an Eastern sensuality, and who really cares what they did, except a political manipulator of Cicero's stripe, who might be able to make a campaign issue of it — a matter of faulty character and judgment, they call it. Illicit sex brings down the wrath of the gods — just ask Cato — and if a Roman like Caesar allows himself to be ploughed in his youth, who knows what famines and military catastrophes might result!

'The Greeks allow for such passions, of course, but only, ostensibly, between the old and the young; it is suitable and proper for a young man to submit to his mentor, given the correct circumstances and decorum Still, you see, the balance of power depends on the role to be played. Naturally, there must always be exceptions, behind closed doors, that do not fit the model of the masterly mentor and the docile protege.

'We Romans, alas, do not even have a model to depart from. We scorn the Greeks, ridiculing their obsessions with philosophy and athletics. Lacking their time-honoured traditions, in matters of vice we are left to our own devices. Mostly, we take horrendous advantage of our slaves, male and female alike. Such passion has no honour, and is thus unfettered and untempered by any rules of dignity or decorum, much less restrained by law. The excesses of the Romans in exploiting their human tools are literally without limit. Slave girls are commonly raped against their will, slave boys are stripped of all their dignity and exploited just as rapaciously. They are treated with a degree of contempt that most men would not inflict upon a dog; indeed, a well-trained dog costs considerably more than a reasonably pretty boy or girl at the market.

'In such a world passion must invariably mean degradation for someone — or so the consensus decrees. So a man like Gordianus the Finder, this strangely moral being, finds other ways to shape his longings. Sex he must have, of course; in that way he is like every other man. But even so he is unconventional: he devotes himself to a slave woman, dotes on her beauty, indulges her haughtiness, and ultimately makes her his wife, thus elevating her rather than degrading her. His behaviour is almost a satire upon the Roman dictum to choose a wife for her status and a whore for her beauty. So far as anyone knows, he is more faithful to his wife than ninety-nine out of a hundred of his countrymen are to theirs. A love match, that rarest of Roman marriages!

'As for the pleasure to be had with young men, he will not approach the matter at all. Or rather, he skirts it. He has top much respect for them, whether citizen or slave, to blithely follow the formula that inevitably elevates one man and degrades the other. He prefers the role of chaste mentor, instead. This behaviour is rare but not unheard of; I have seen it before and recognize it in you. Gordianus does not exploit and rape his slaves. Nor does he seek out an uncertain middle ground with a companion of his own station. He teaches; he nurtures and dotes; he elevates. He makes sentimentality a fetish; his gestures are grandiose. He goes so far as to adopt a street urchin and a slave boy and to make these young men his heirs. Such an unconventional family! And while he remains exquisitely sensitive to the beauties of young men, he sees, but he does not touch. What reticence, more given to compassion than passion! He is a man out of step with a world that encourages the strong to devour the weak, that rewards cruelty and punishes kindness, that measures manhood by a man's will to dominate other men, women, children, and slaves, the more ruthlessly the better. He is a stranger fellow than ever Catilina was!'

He fell silent. We lay next to each other, equally naked beneath the bright moon. 'And Catilina,' I said, my voice strange in my ears because Catilina's words had made everything seem strange, 'how does he fit into such a world?'

'Like Gordianus, Catilina makes his own rules, to suit himself.'

We lay on the hill, musing and amusing ourselves long into the night.

As sometimes happens when the body has been heated by a bath, then cools, and then exerts itself again after an already strenuous day, I fell asleep without meaning to. Fortunately, the night remained mild and there was no morning chill. I awoke before cockcrow. The towel had been folded over me like a coverlet. Catilina was gone.

The moon was long departed. The sky was neither blue nor black but in between. The lesser stars had vanished. In the east Lucifer, the morning star, glittered just above the dark, brooding mass of Mount Argentum.

I stood, covering my nakedness with the towel and slipping on my sandals, which I had taken off during the night. I climbed slowly down the slope of the ridge, my back stiff from having slept on the hard ground.

The watcher atop the stable, yawning from his vigil, blinked his eyes wide open at the sight of me.

'My guests,' I said, 'the ones who arrived yesterday—'

'Gone already, Master. Took their horses an hour ago. Turned

towards Rome when they reached the Cassian Way.' He bit his lip. 'I was a bit worried about you when he came down from the hill alone.

I went up to check on you, and you seemed all right. Sleeping like

a stone. Did I do right not to wake you?' I nodded dully and went into the house.

Bethesda was asleep, but stirred when I slid my body next to hers. 'You smell like wine,' she murmured, with an edge to her voice. 'Where have you been all night? If this were Rome, I would think you had been with another woman.'

'Absurd,' I said. 'No chance of that happening here.'

I closed my eyes and slept till noon.

XXXI

That night on the ridge with Catilina was one of the last moments of calm before the deluge.

September continued dry and mild. The first days of October turned leaves to gold and quickened the harvests. With the puzzle of the mill solved, I gave myself over to running the farm again, and the work continued at a busy pace. I busied myself with small matters to distract me from the looming crises of hay and water, and from Meto's continuing coolness towards me.

Catilina visited once again in September and three times in October. On each occasion he brought other companions besides Tongilius, but there were never more than five or six. These men were large and armed: bodyguards. Bethesda did not care for the look of them, but they slept in the stable and ate the same fare as the slaves without complaint, and Catilina never stayed for more than a night.

On each succeeding visit Catilina became less communicative and more distant. I sensed in this the reticence ofa man increasingly distracted and pressed for time. He would arrive late in the day and leave early in the morning. He did not haunt the atrium or go walking naked under moonlight, but took to his bed soon after dinner and rose at dawn. I was seldom alone with him for even a moment; we shared no more revelations about the anguish of his defeat or the obscure geometries of desire.-

He did not even spare the time to revisit the water mill, though I offered to show it to him more than once. I had found it necessary to rebuild some parts of the mechanism to match better with Catilina's solution, and once the general design had been altered, Aratus also suggested a few minor adjustments to the overall scheme. This work was done in desultory fashion, in bits and pieces as the more pressing work of the farm allowed. By late October it was virtually finished, though its true utility could be confirmed and measured only when the stream once again rose high enough to drive the wheel. I looked to the skies every morning and night, hoping for rain.

It was on a day near the end of October that I decided to show Claudia the mill. It was Claudia who had told me of her cousin Lucius's intention to build such a mill; without her, I would never have known. I sent a message that she should meet me on the ridgetop at midday, suggesting we share a simple meal and telling her I had something to show her.