John Roberts - The Catiline Conspiracy

"Please come with me, Quaestor," Tiro said. "My master is with another visitor at the moment, but he wishes to see you and will come as soon as he has a few free minutes." He led me to a small room off the atrium where a table had already been set with refreshments, As a lawyer and now as Consul, Cicero was accustomed to receiving late visitors, who did not wish to be seen approaching him in the daytime.

"Thank you, Tiro," I said. "I hope you will inform the Consul that this is a matter of danger to the state. I would not call upon him at such an hour, unannounced, for anything less serious."

"He is well aware of that, sir. He will not be long. In the meantime, please refresh yourself while you wait."

I did as advised. The wine was a fine, mellow old Setinian, far better than I could afford. From nervousness and perplexity I had forgone dinner that evening, so I attacked the snack tray with appetite. Besides boiled quail's eggs there were pastries stuffed with chopped pork and others with honey and nuts. I was finishing off one of the latter when Cicero arrived. I fear I made a poor impression, as I was sucking honey from my fingertips as he came in. I sprang to my feet and made the expected apologies for disturbing him, but he waved them off and indicated I should resume my seat. He sat opposite me, ignoring the table and its temptations.

"People are always coming to me with tales of danger to the state, Decius Caecilius, but you have rendered loyal service in the past on matters touching state security. Please tell me what you have uncovered."

So I told him. I spoke of the murders, and of my discovery that the victims were moneylenders, and of Milo's advice that I contact the indebted malcontents who infested Rome. When I get to Catilina, I could see the look of distaste that crossed Cicero's face. All I left out was the part about Aurelia. A man should be allowed a few secrets.

"Lucius Sergius Catilina!" Cicero said, almost spitting the name. "So it has come to this? He wants a return to the evil days, when Romans killed Romans in the very streets of Rome? I always knew he was pernicious, now I know that he is mad." He looked at me with a frosty smile. "This has been most sagacious, Decius. I know of no other man whose mind works like yours, sifting evidence and placing seemingly disparate facts together to construct a-how shall I put it?-a model of how things might have happened. You should have been a philosopher."

"I'll accept that as a compliment, Consul," I told him. "Yes, I was stymied when the banker Caius Rabirius told me, at the Egyptian ambassador's, that the mere death of the lender did not cancel the debt. But when I found out that the murders were a show of earnestness, things began to make sense again."

"But the eques Decimus Flavius, the director of the Reds, was not a moneylender and seems to have no connection with the conspirators. How do you explain his demise?"

"I have a theory about that, Consul, but I need more proof." Actually, I was almost certain of why Flavius had died, but I also had a terrible feeling that Aurelia was directly involved and I did not want to bring her into it, still hoping to find proof of her innocence. "And you intend to go through with this charade of murdering the physician?" He laughed, something one rarely heard from Cicero. "It is the most insane thing I have ever heard, but then you are dealing with madmen and I suppose mad measures are called for."

"About Crassus-" I began, but he cut me off.

"That is mere speculation, Decius. You have incontrovertible evidence of the machinations of Catilina and his cronies, but none at all that Crassus might be involved."

"But they can have no hope of succeeding unless they are supported by real wealth and a credible army," I pointed out.

"Decius, these men are mad and desperate enough to think they can get away with it," Cicero insisted. "Their heads are full of airy fantasies and they are totally detached from reality. They are the sort who believe that they deserve high office because of some innate quality apparent only to themselves. They have never faced the fact that the only path to the highest honors is through education, hard soldiering and long, rigorous service, They hope, through desperate action, to have it all in a few days through the mere risk of their worthless lives." He shook his head. "No, Decius, Crassus has everything now. Why would he throw in with such men?"

"You have said nothing that has not occurred to me," I told him, "but I fear that you misread Crassus."

"Then bring me proof, Decius. If I had a single shred of evidence, preferably in writing, I would stand before the Senate tomorrow, denouncing Crassus and calling for his exile. But I must have more than your suspicions."

I was silent. He leaned back in his chair and went on, less severely. "Continue your investigation, Decius. You have rendered invaluable service already, and I must know all you can find out about this conspiracy. Knowing where their two largest arsenals are in the city will be worth half a legion to us when they make their move."

"I don't yet know when that will be," I said.

"We have a while yet. Let's get every name we can before I take this to the Senate. In the meantime I will speak to the Praetor Metellus and ensure that your legal position in this will be unassailable."

"Speaking of praetores," I said, "do you think there is any likelihood that the Praetor Lentulus Sura is really involved?"

Cicero pondered. "Lentulus Sura is a man of ignoble character. He is one of the few men ever to be elected Consul only to be expelled from the Senate the next year by the Censors. If any man of such rank is involved with the conspirators, it would be Lentulus, but I will not believe it until I see proof."

Now I remembered something else. It had been Crassus, during his abortive censorship, who had reinstated Lentulus as a member in good standing of the Senate, allowing him to stand for the praetorship elections held the next year. He owed Crassus much. I said nothing of this.

"You are right to be wary of the names Catilina gave you. Hortalus and Lucullus have become a pair of slothful gardeners, but they would have nothing to do with this nonsense. If those two and others like them would stay in Rome and help out in the Senate more often, instead of fish-raising, we would not have so much trouble with mediocrities such as fall in with the likes of Catilina." Both Hortalus and Lucullus were inordinately proud of their fishponds, in which they experimented with new types of foreign fish for domestication in Italy. Cicero considered this frivolous and said so, before the Senate.

"Yet you and Hortalus and Lucullus have been at odds before," I commented.

"What have my personal likes and dislikes to do with it?" he snapped. "They are both enormously capable men and ought to be here, serving the state, not playing the retired gentleman out in the country."

"And Julius Caesar?" I asked.

"There's more to him than most people think, even if he did get elected Pontifex Maximus through the most shameless campaign of bribery I have ever witnessed. He could be involved, but once again I would have to see proof."

"If you will pardon me, Consul," I said, "you do not seem terribly surprised or shaken by my revelations, which I had thought to be dramatic in the extreme." I was rather disappointed that he had not ordered an emergency meeting of the Senate to denounce the traitors.

Again that frosty smile. "I have known of Catilina's plottings for two or more years now. Oh, don't look so surprised. A man doesn't reach my position without having a great many sources of information. You are the first to bring me such detailed information, gleaned from Catilina himself, but my secondhand knowledge has been rather good."

"Who? Or would you rather not say?" I was stunned and a bit crestfallen.