John Roberts - The Catiline Conspiracy

I found the house about an hour after sunset. It was Thorius who let me in. Apparently, the slaves had been confined for the duration of the meeting. That seemed to be about the only elementary precaution these people bothered with. Inside, about fifteen men were crowded into the atrium. All wore strained looks, as if the seriousness of what they were doing had at last become real to them. They spoke among themselves in tense mutters, as if each had a strangling hand at his throat. All fell silent when Catilina appeared from the rear of the house.

"My friends!" he began. "Comrades! Fellow patriots! The time has come for us to act!" His mood was one of barely suppressed hilarity. He was trying to speak past a grin that split his face like a sword-cut. His excitement put a quaver into his voice and I could see, appallingly, how much time, hatred, disappointment and bitterness had gone into the plan that was at last to bear fruit. I had the horrifying feeling that he was about to break into a dance.

"Today," Catilina declared, "I have sent word to my lieutenant Gaius Manlius in Fiesole. He is to call his men together and raise the rebellion immediately." The assembled men gave a hoarse cheer.

"The same message," he said when they were quiet, "has gone to Nobilior in Bruttium." A more restrained cheer greeted this announcement. The others probably shared my opinion of the people of Bruttium. "When word reaches Rome that there is insurrection in Bruttium and Etruria, there will be panic in the Senate.

That -" he shouted the word-"will be the time for us to rise here in the city. We will kill, and burn, and rouse the people against their oppressors, the moneylenders and the decadent aristocrats who have sequestered the high offices of state to themselves. We shall sweep over Rome like a cleansing fire, and restore the Republic to its ancient purity!" This, from the man who proposed to destroy the Republic utterly.

And something rang terribly false in Catilina's rant, His near-hysterical elation was desperate in its joy. Before, his confidence, however unjustified, had been real. Now it was forced. What could have happened? Had he suffered a sudden attack of reality? I doubted it.

"As soon as we have shown our hand here in the city," Catilina went on, "then I shall ride out to join our troops in the field. For it will be through fighting outside the walls that Rome shall be won. I will take with me those men who wish to win glory on the field of battle, while others remain here, to hold the city for me, a post equally honorable." I saw all around me men who wore a look of great relief. Street fighting was something they knew, and they had no stomach for hazarding their lives on an open battlefield.

Catilina seemed to be gaining confidence, as if it was something he absorbed from the worshipful devotion of his followers. He began to point out individuals and assign them their duties.

"Valgius, Thorius, have your bands of fire-raisers ready. Cethegus, be sure that the weaponry is in good order to be handed out to our supporters here in the city. Junius, put your street spies on alert." Then he turned toward me. "Metellus…"

"Yes, Consul?" I said, all my innards quaking.

"Remain here for a while after the others have left. I have duties for you to attend to."

"As my Consul commands!" I said dutifully. I felt a slight relief. Surely, if he had detected my true nature, he would have taken that moment to have his followers kill me.

"This is a momentous day in the fortunes of the Republic," Catilina proclaimed. "As momentous as that day almost seven centuries ago when we cast out the Tar-quins, foreigners who had presumed to be kings of the Romans!" More cheering. "In years to come, whenever Roman schoolchildren are asked by their schoolmasters, 'When was the Republic restored?' they will answer, 'Upon the night that the supporters of the Consul Catilina met at the house of Laeca.' " At this the cheering and applause were deafening. This lust for the adulation of unborn generations of schoolboys has always eluded me, but it was very real to the men gathered in that atrium.

"Go, then!" Catilina cried. "Go to your stations of action. Now is not the time for talk, but for action. Do your duty now, by your rightful Consul, and future generations will bless and exalt your names. Monuments to the men present here this night will grace the Forum, for all to admire, and your names shall be as the names of our founding fathers." A hoarse and ragged cheer greeted this, as if even this group could not believe that they would ever enjoy such esteem.

When they were gone, I stood in the suddenly large room, fingering my dagger hilt and caestus.

After a few minutes, Catilina returned to the room alone. He carried a scroll of papyrus. This he unrolled on a table, weighting its corners. He dipped a reed pen in a pot of ink and turned to me.

"Decius, I want you to sign this. It's a message to the Gauls, committing ourselves to the rebellion and promising to uphold their demands, restore their liberties and cancel their debts."

I looked at the papyrus. They had actually taken the bait. "Lucius, isn't it unwise to commit something like this to writing?" Quickly, I looked over the document, which was as Catilina had described it. Foremost among the names, I saw the Praetor Publius Lentulus Sura, but none of the other high-ranking men whose names the conspirators had been so free with. Crassus, Hortalus, Lucullus and Caesar were conspicuously absent.

"The war has begun, Decius," Catilina said. "We are all as good as declared public enemies now. Our names on a paper will mean nothing… Unless you feel you have some reason for refusing to sign."

"Not at all," I said, snatching up the reed pen and signing my name. I carefully used my title and my formal name, signing as Quaestor Decius Caecilius son of Decius grandson of Lucius great-grandson of Lucius Metellus. I wanted to ensure that no one could alter my name to implicate my father. Catilina glanced at my signature and made a satisfied sound. He scattered sand on the wet ink and shook it off, then rerolled the scroll, "Lucius," I said, "you must sent Orestilla and Aurelia away to someplace safe until this is over." He just looked at me absently, as if he had his mind on more important things.

"Orestilla?" he said, coming back from wherever his mind had wandered. "I've sent them both to a house in the country. They'll be safe until I can send for them."

"What will you do now?" I asked, relieved. "I intend to watch the excitement," he said, grinning. Now he sounded like the old Catilina. Whatever had unnerved him, he was shaking it off. "I will make some public speeches, pointing out the advantages of a change in government. Never fear, there will be plenty of popular support for me when the swords are drawn." This was the first I heard that he counted on much popular support.

I thought of this as I walked home that night. It was not only dark but chill, rainy and suitably miserable. As I splashed through puddles and dodged disgruntled dogs, I reflected on the fickleness of the Roman electorate. Although Rome and the empire as a whole were richer than ever, the body of poor citizens was also unprecedentedly great. There were many crushed by debt, with little hope of relief. The labor market was flooded with cheap slaves and even skilled craftsmen could only manage a living wage. The situation was worse in some rural areas, where slave-worked latifundia had crowded out and impoverished the free farmers, and the people, had no access to a public dole.

Under such circumstances, many might grasp at a chance for a better condition. The rabble could easily be swayed by demagogues and opportunists, never thinking far enough ahead to see what they were being led into.

And there was the simple fact of boredom. Times had been quiet, Rome was victorious, life was a pallid round of work, games, public holidays, religious festivals and sacrifices. In a word: dull. There were many, and not just among the urban poor, who missed the bad old days, when the mobs and private armies of Marius and Cinna, of Sulla and all the others had fought in the streets, when a common city-dweller might kill a Senator with impunity, when the houses of the rich were sacked and torched in the name of one tyrannical warlord or other. They had been heady times until their great harvest of misery brought people to their senses.