John Roberts - The Catiline Conspiracy

"When I encountered the three of you that morning," I said, "you were not just passing by. You were actually entering that tunnel when I ran into the bearded twins."

"And what does that signify?" she asked, pouting.

I stared at my ceiling, barely visible in the flickering lamplight. "It made no sense at first, but then I learned more of what Catilina planned. You've been assigned to supervise those two, haven't you?"

She yawned again. "They aren't very bright. From the beginning, my stepfather has been plagued by the incompetence of his supporters. I've had to check everything they did to make sure they didn't bungle it."

"Why you?" I asked.

"I am trusted. They are near my age, and who would question a patrician lady accompanied by a pair of flunkies? Who would even notice who the flunkies were?"

"Who but I?" I said. "And Valgius is in charge of fire-raising in the city. He is intimately familiar with the Circus Maximus, and everyone knows that it is the most dangerous firetrap in Rome. As I figured it later, he and Thorius had found that great heap of trash and decided that it would be a good place to start their fire. In their usual bungling fashion, they spoke out loud and sound carries in those galleries. Flavius was passing by on his way home and overheard them. He came too close when he tried to hear more, and they caught him."

"You have spent all this time reconstructing what might have happened from what you knew?" She sounded annoyed. "You're a man of strange tastes."

"I would have figured it out sooner had I not been so besotted with you, Aurelia."

"Oh, Decius," she said, pleased, patting me intimately.

"Anyway," I went on, "the two bearded wonders were at a loss what to do. Since they were merely scouting for arson, they had not come armed for murder. But Valgius is a race fanatic. Like many other superstitious race fans, he carries a charioteer's knife for luck. Its shape was inappropriate, but in their emergency it had to do and they cut Flavius's throat with it."

"I think this sophistry of yours is a waste of imagination," she said. "What does all this matter?"

"It matters to me," I said. "Were you the one who got them to catch Flavius before he could get away and then to murder him?"

"Why do you want to know these things?"

"Don't worry. I will think no less of you. I know you were involved. Why are you so reluctant to admit it?"

She squirmed a little and I could almost feel her blush heating my skin like a distant fire. "Well, it was not something-not something I wanted to be associated with."

I knew what she meant. It was not the murder. Murder is all too common and Roman citizens are rarely put to death for murder, unless it is done with poison. It was the arson, the one unforgivable crime on the Roman law tables. The citizenry would take terrible vengeance on anyone caught fire-raising. If this were known of her, she could find herself bound to a stake in the arena, soaked with tar and awaiting the executioner's torch.

I stroked her back. "It doesn't matter," I said. "Go back to sleep." Within minutes she was faintly snoring.

Indeed, it did not matter. The situation had moved far beyond a few killings. And one way or another justice would be done. Within a matter of days or at most weeks, Catilina and all of his followers would be dead or in exile. The shades of the murdered equites would not haunt the city. Perhaps they would not even haunt my dreams.

At first light the next morning I walked Aurelia through the awakening streets of Rome. She wore her veils, but no one sought her. I looked around for some sign of change, but there was none. The war had commenced, but Rome was blissfully ignorant of the fact. All that would change soon enough. I wanted Aurelia out of it when it happened.

She had left her litter and slaves at a friend's house, and I took her there. We made our goodbyes at the gate of the house, a respectable mansion near the Colline gate.

"Leave the city, Aurelia," I said. "Go as far as you can and as quickly as you can."

She smiled at me. "Decius, you are too nervous. Within a few days my stepfather will be Consul and I can return."

"It will not be as quick or as easy as that," I promised, "and for a while no member of the family of Catilina will be safe anywhere near Rome."

"Well, until then." She leaned forward and kissed me, as if we were being separated for the afternoon, then she turned and went into the mansion.

Despondently, I turned and walked toward the Forum. I knew that I would never see her again, unless she were hauled back to Rome in chains, for execution. I prayed that she, at least, would get out of this alive. I had ceased to care about her guilt. I no longer saw innocence anywhere I looked.

There was an eerie tranquility in Rome for the next two days. The city lay in its usual late-fall somnolence, the inhabitants lazing through the short days, waiting for the return of spring, the Floralia and all the ritual assurances that Proserpina had left the bed of Pluto and returned to the world of mortals. Thus, the news that arrived on the morning of the third day was doubly shocking.

There is some near-magical process, which I have never fathomed, by which news and rumor reaches every part of Rome simultaneously. When I walked into the Forum in the early morning, there was pandemonium. A half dozen self-appointed orators harangued the citizenry with impromptu speeches delivered from the bases of the various monuments and everyone shouted the latest rumors at one another. Women wailed and tore their garments in terror, although the immediate danger seemed rather slight, and hawkers of charms and amulets were doing an unprecedented business.

I decided that the Temple of Saturn could do without me for a while and shoved my way through the crowd to the Curia. At the foot of the steps I encountered the Praetor Cosconius, preceded by his lictors.

"What is this all about?" I asked him.

He surveyed the mob contemptuously. "You know how crowds are. There have been rebellious uprisings here and there in Italy. A few bandits sack some villas in Bruttium and Etruria and by the time the news reaches Rome you'd think it was old Mithridates come back to life, invading Rome with his whole army. For days Cicero has been warning that Catilina was up to something. This is probably it."

All morning long the Senators streamed in, many of them having been summoned from villas near the city. The lictors and heralds restored order in the Forum while the Senate debated. I forced my way into the Curia, but it was so packed that I had to stand on an urn at the very back of the chamber to see or hear anything. Reports from various parts of Italy were read out by heralds. From the younger Senators there were shouts for action.

Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, despite his semi-retirement, was still Princeps of the Senate and thus had the right to speak first. In his matchlessly beautiful voice, he protested that his distance from affairs of state made him unfit to speak on this matter, but that in recognition of the emergency, the usual protocol should be bypassed and the Consul should be allowed to address the Senate first. This, I was sure, had been arranged beforehand between them. They had been bitter political rivals, but with lawyerly objectivity they could cooperate closely on important matters. Cicero stood from his sella curulis and all was silent.

I will not reproduce here his speech, which was the first of the three anti-Catilinarian speeches that are now among the most famous speeches since Demosthenes denounced Philip of Macedon to the Athenians. In later years Cicero wrote these speeches down (with embellishments), and published them. Now they are studied by every schoolboy and emulated by every would-be lawyer wherever Rome holds sway, which is the whole civilized world, these days.