The Catiline Conspiracy (4 page)

Anyone seriously dedicated to the joys of feasting knows that it is essential to take an occasional break and purge oneself of the more heroic excesses. I fully intended to see the sun come up on this one. Even here, though, Lucullus had seen to our comfort. In the center of the steam room was a huge basin in which pitchers of wine sat packed in snow hauled down from the Alps in wagons.

An extraordinarily handsome young man came in, followed by a group of youths of similar age. He was about nineteen, with black, curly hair and a smile that would have shamed Apollo. He squinted through the steam, then walked up to me and held out his hand.

"The
Quaestor
Metellus?" he asked.

"The same. And you are...?"

"Marcus Antonius." I had thought the family look was familiar.

"The Consul's son?" I asked. A companion handed him a cup of the chilled wine.

"His nephew. My father is the elder Marcus." He sat next to me, while his friends, whom he clearly dominated, found places for themselves. "Your father presided as
augur
at my manhood ceremony a few years ago."

"Then this must be your first triumphal banquet," I said. "There hasn't been one since Afranius and Calpurnianus celebrated theirs seven years ago."

"I've heard those were nothing like this one." His eyes gleamed with youthful enthusiasm. "Lucullus knows how to throw a banquet."

I agreed that this was so. His father, the elder Marcus Antonius, had been an incompetent and a criminal even by Antonine standards. Sent out to destroy the Mediterranean pirates, he had instead gone plundering in the provinces. He attacked Crete on the pretext that they were allied with the pirates. On that island he had accomplished the truly extraordinary feat of being utterly defeated by the Cretans. He was nicknamed
Creticus
in derision and had died in Greece, unmourned, about ten years before this memorable banquet. One had to pity this splendid young man his paternity.

"Do you know what I love about the baths?" he said. "They're the only places in Rome where you can go and be sure of never running into any Gauls." His friends laughed loudly at this, although he laughed even louder. He had a fine, infectious laugh that made his weakest witticisms seem brilliant.

"Do you mean those Allobroges over there at the banquet?" I asked.

"Who else? They've been calling on my uncle nearly every morning. That means I have to endure them when I make
my
morning calls." Men that young think that all of life's vexations are aimed solely at them.

"It could have been Germans," I said consolingly. Then one of the youths challenged him to a wrestling match and they all ran out to the exercise yard. A plunge into the cold pool almost completely cleared my head. After being vigorously toweled and pummeled by the attendants, I felt ready to face the next few courses of the banquet.

On the street outside the bath, a great crowd of citizens had gathered. Facing the garden, they chanted praises and congratulations to the
triumphator
. Some of the chants were so ancient that nobody knew what the words meant. I was about to push my way into the crowd when I saw a single, lonely figure standing on the pedestal of a statue of Flora that stood in an alcove between the public bath and the new Temple of Minerva. The man was strangely erect and dignified, and even in the gloom of the alcove he seemed familiar. Curious, walked over to the pedestal and looked up.

"Consul?" I said.

Cicero looked down. "Is that Decius Metellus? Come up and join me."

Mystified, I went behind the statue where there were steps to mount the pedestal. It was almost four months past the
Floralia
, but the statue of the goddess had been freshly draped with flowers in honor of the occasion. The smell was almost overpowering.

Gripping a fold of the goddess's gown to steady myself, I rounded the statue and found Cicero gazing upward. He was very still, and did not seem at all like his usual, public self.

"Here, out of the torchlight," he said, "it is a good night for observing the stars. I spend a part of every night in contemplating the stars."

"My father taught me to take the auguries," I said, "but except for the falling sort, those don't take great account of the stars. I'm afraid he considers stargazing to be Oriental mummery."

"Many Romans think that, but they are wrong. I have studied writings from Egypt and Persia, the Greeks, even the wild Druids agree that the stars exert great influence on us. Especially that one." He pointed and it was plain which one he meant. It was by far the brightest and the reddest, hanging like a brilliant drop of blood amid the jewellike points of white.

"Even I know that one," I said. "Sirius, the Dog Star,
Canicula
, the little dog, and a few other names. Patron of these very days, the dog days of late summer."

"What you say is what everyone knows. But why do we fear that one? What makes it a star of evil reputation?"

"I thought it was because the dog days are the time of pestilence and the beginning of the season of storms." This seemed an odd subject to be discussing at such a festive time.

"That is true, but there is more. At the festival of this gentle goddess"--he patted the knee of the statue--"at the
Floralia
, we sacrifice red dogs to appease that star.

We do the same at the
Robigalia
when we honor her male counterpart. Why do we do that?"

I shrugged, longing for some more of that Caecuban wine. "These are very ancient deities," I said. "We perform a good many rituals we no longer understand."

"That is true. It is also true that never in living memory has Sirius been as red as it has been this summer."

In the distance, faint over the chanting of the crowd, we heard the heralds proclaim the resumption of the feast. With great relief I descended and helped Cicero down. He did not need help because he was feeble. He was only forty-three at the time, astoundingly young for a Consul. He needed aid because of the awkwardness of his formal toga, which was so white that he almost glowed in the darkness of the alcove.

As we made our way through the crowd, I thought about what he had said. Even more than most people, Romans live by signs and portents. I know of no other people who maintain two separate priesthoods to interpret omens. We take no public and few private actions without consulting the auguries and the haruspices. When all else fails, we will consult the Sibylline Books, for which we maintain a college of fifteen men who are empowered to look into them in times of national danger. Besides these more serious matters, the people of Rome, from Consuls to slaves, are mad for omens, which they will find in every imaginable place and circumstance.

Birds, lightning, storms, odd things falling from the sky, monstrous births, all are noticed, remarked upon and interpreted to signify something or other, from the loss of one's lover to a military disaster overseas. When these natural phenomena are not enough, fabricated omens must suffice. Statues speak or turn their heads, nanny goats give birth to lion cubs, gods appear to shepherds on hillsides, voices come from the sea, dead snakes prophesy from within golden eggs--the list is endless.

And yet, in all my life I had never encountered definite evidence that any of this was true. Any time I have spoken of this, I have been told that it is churlish to expect anything so mundane as evidence or proof in matters of this sort. A few philosophers have told me that certain of the Greeks had a belief that one arrived at the truth by examining evidence and drawing conclusions therefrom, but these had never gained much of a following. Even so, I have always been impelled to look into things, to examine evidence and find the truth. To snoop, as my father used to say when he was displeased with me. It got me into a great deal of trouble, and it was about to again, soon after this memorable night.

Back at my place at the long table, I saw that the servers had brought out a concoction that was meant to depict the sea monster Scylla reaching for the ship of Ulysses. After some consultation with Catilina and the diner to my other side, a
quaestor
named Vatinius, who was in charge of preventing precious metals from leaving Italy, we decided that it was made of lampreys boiled in squid ink. I decided to restrain myself and wait until the next course. I have never been hungry enough to enjoy lampreys, in or out of ink.

It was not a long wait. To my great delight, the next course consisted of African gazelle, grilled over charcoal made from the thorn wood of its native land (the server assured us of this). The nautical reference in this case was an obscure one, concerning a Babylonian god or perhaps goddess. I have never been able to make much sense of the eastern mythologies, nor ever seen much sense in attempting to. Whatever the divine connection may have been, the meat was delectable. Catilina spoke with great authority on the subject of this animal, its habits and the best ways to cook and eat it, claiming to have learned these things as
Propraetor
in Africa three years before. We were pleasantly, tipsily engaged in discussing this creature and how best to devour it when I saw Catilina turn pale beneath his red complexion, his eyes turning to agate. I followed the direction of his alarming gaze and saw, weaving among the tables, servers and entertainers, none other than Publius Clodius. He hadn't always been Clodius, naturally. He had started out as Publius Claudius Pulcher, scion of one of the noblest of the patrician families. But he had chosen to throw in his political lot with the
populares
, and so had decided to use the plebian form of his family name.

"He must be incredibly drunk to show his face here," I noted. As Lucullus's legate in Asia, Clodius had stirred up a mutiny among the general's own legionaries. Then he deserted and joined the army of Marcius Rex, who waited outside the walls along with Creticus.

"Who knows?" said Vatinius. "He might have been invited. He's the
triumphator's
brother-in-law, after all. And another sister is married to the
Praetor
Metellus Celer. I hear Celer's wife is calling herself Clodia now, like her brother."

"Another knucklebone," I said.

"What's that?" Vatinius asked.

I was distracted by Catilina, whose face had gone positively insane with rage. His hand went into his toga and beneath his tunic, closing around something that seemed suspiciously like a dagger hilt. I twisted around and gripped his wrist firmly.

"You can't do that here!" I hissed. "Every priest and magistrate in Rome is here tonight! It's sacrilege to carry arms within the
pomerium
and murder is frowned upon! Keep that thing hidden and calm yourself, Lucius.' Gradually, his face calmed and his eyes cleared. He snatched up his cup and emptied it in one long swallow then held it out for more.

"I've longed to kill that sewer rat for ten years. Since he came back to Rome, he's gone nowhere in public without his gang of bravos." His voice shook, but he had it under control. "It seems a shame to lose the opportunity, but I thank you, Decius. It would have been impolitic."

"Think nothing of it," I said. "We've all wanted to kill Clodius from time to time. He's even set his men to kill me, in the past. Just politics." With Catilina, it was understandably more personal. Ten years before, Clodius had accused him of an illicit affair with the Vestal Fabia. The two had been cleared of all charges and there had been deadly hatred between Clodius and Catilina ever since.

Vatinius, who had carefully taken no notice of the little drama, now distracted us by violently shoving away a dish that a server had placed before him, his face twisted with disgust. I looked to see what it was: wild hare cooked with broad beans.

"Anyone who can bear to look at boiled lampreys night to be able to face hare and beans," I said.

"Beans are unclean food," he informed me. "Eating them is contrary to the teachings of Pythagoras."

"I didn't know you were a Pythagorean," I said. There were few things that interested me less than the teachings of Pythagoras, or any other philosopher, for that matter, but it was a safe subject.

By the time gray streaks appeared in the eastern sky, I knew that I would never want to eat again and I had heard all I wanted to hear about the teachings of Pythagoras. Before departing, each of us was given a guest-gift. Mine was a massive gold ring set with a garnet, smoothed and ready for the jeweler to engrave my seal. Like everyone else, I had brought along my largest napkin to carry away leftovers for my slaves. Some of these napkins were the size of a boy's toga and we looked like a pack of drunken legionaries leaving a sacked town with our booty on our backs.

I was joyful as I walked home. It is difficult to be sad at such a time. There were days of celebrations and public games ahead, and no work for me. Yet there was sadness too. Once again we had rejoiced in Rome's increasing power and glory, but I had a feeling of something coming to an end.

With a small group of revelers, I made my way to my home in the Subura. We trod on heaps of flower petals and bawled old victory-songs, as if we had done all the fighting ourselves. They left me at my gate, but I stood outside for a while, as the street grew quiet.

I wondered what was the meaning of this melancholy, the sense that I had seen the end of something. I could make no sense of it. I looked up at the sky, but gray dawn had washed out the stars and I could not see the bloody eye of Sirius gazing down.

Father was right about the treasury. I found that the gold did indeed flow out like the Tiber in flood. Most of it went to pay the legions, since the great public works are usually given to the city as gifts by wealthy men. It seemed shocking at first, that the relatively small number of legionaries, whose pay is not high, could cost so much. But people forget that, besides the citizen legions, there are an even greater number of auxiliaries, all of whom must be paid. They must have slaves, horses and other animals, rations, tents and so forth. Forts had to be built, ships had to be purchased and manned. Since Roman citizens paid virtually no taxes, and looting opportunities such as the sack of Tigranocerta were rare and growing rarer, somebody had to be found to pay for all this.

The answer was to tax the provinces. Since the government of Rome was too august and dignified to dirty its hands on anything as base as tax collecting, this task was farmed out to the
publicani
, the men who bid at auction for the public contracts, among which was the tax-collecting franchise. It was often hard on the provincials, but people who don't want to be taxed should make sure to win their wars. It had the advantage that the provincials usually hated the local publican rather than the Roman government.

Most Romans manage to live out their lives blithely ignorant of these things, but I had to learn them as part of my job. Another part was that, as a
quaestor,
I was expected to contribute to the paving of the high roads out of my own purse. It was a sort of poll-fee for entering the life of politics. What it meant was that I had to borrow heavily from my father, who at least wouldn't charge me usurious interest.

Even with all this, I truly had little to do at the Temple of Saturn. My days were passed amid boredom, watching the slaves and freedmen laboriously adding and subtracting. I signed for contributions and disbursements. The days passed without variety: mornings at the temple, afternoons at the baths, evenings I usually had dinner at someone's home. As an official, even a lowly one, I was much in demand as a guest.

On a morning in fall, I went to the temple in a better frame of mind than usual. The year was waning, soon I would be out of office. Some other poor office holder could take over the drudgery of the dim rooms beneath the temple. By virtue of having held this office I would be a Senator, with a purple stripe on my tunic and the privilege of sitting in the
Curia
listening to speeches and pretending to have influence. Perhaps I would seek an appointment as legate in one of the provinces. I always detested having to be absent from Rome, but I was ready for a change of scenery after my dismal quaestorship and it was idle to seek higher office without a consistent military record.

With these pleasant thoughts in mind, I walked from my house toward the Forum. I was not halfway to my destination when I saw a small crowd blocking my path. There is a way that people stand, grouped in a sort of elongated oval and looking downward, often on tiptoe and over one another's shoulders, that tells you they are gawking at a body. This seemed odd to me, because there had not been any large gang fights since the elections. A man in the tunic of a
vigile
saw me and came running.

"
Quaestor
, there has been a murder. Will you take charge here until we can inform a
praetor
?"

"Certainly," I said, delighted at this break in routine. "Any idea who the victim is?"

"Well, no, sir," the man said. "We were afraid to touch him. Not that I'm
afraid of ghosts or dead men's curses, but some of the men are." It was typical.
We kill people enthusiastically all over the world, and we are entertained by violent death in the amphitheater, but Romans are afraid to touch dead bodies.

"Then go to the Temple of Libitina and have a priest and some attendants sent to perform the rites. We can't just leave a body lying in the street until a relative or owner comes to claim it."

"Won't be any owner,
Quaestor
," the
vigile
said. "Look at him."

The crowd parted at my approach and I saw the body. The disarrayed toga covered the head, but enough of the tunic was uncovered to reveal the purple stripe that ran from collar to hem. It was not the broad stripe of a Senator, but the narrow one of an
eques
. It lay facedown, one hand protruding from beneath the folds of cloth to display a number of weighty gold rings glinting in the growing light of morning. In the middle of the back, a dagger pierced toga and body. A broad circle of blood surrounded the blade, marring the whiteness of the toga.

"You
vigiles
," I called to the men who stood around, their fire-buckets dangling from their hands, "keep this crowd back and keep the street clear enough for people to pass." They did as I said.

I squatted by the body, careful to keep my toga clear of the filthy street and especially careful not to touch the corpse. It was not that I was afraid of ghosts or curses, but if I touched it I would be ritually unclean and then I could not enter the temple without a lot of tedious cleansing ceremonies.

The handle of the dagger was curiously carved, but in the still-dim light I could tell no more about it. I promised myself a closer look later. I could tell nothing about the dead man except his rank, and I would know nothing further until the
libitinarii
arrived to turn him over. I was almost disappointed that the purple stripe of the tunic was not wider. There were a few Senators I would not have minded seeing in this condition. Even worse luck, it could not be a patrician, because then I could have amused myself by hoping it would be Clodius's face I would see.

Within a few minutes, a lictor cleared a way through the crowd, the people parting magically before his
fasces
.

Behind him was a Senator I recognised. It was Caius Octavius, who had been appointed a
Iudex Quaestionis
for that year. I stood when he arrived.

"The
Praetor
Rufus has sent me to report to him on this matter," he said. "I don't suppose there were any witnesses?"

"Are there ever?" I answered.

"Who is he?"

"That is what I would like to know," I said, then: "We may know soon. Here come the corpse-takers."

Down the street came the one sight guaranteed to make Romans stand back: the
libitinarii
, preceded by their priest with his long-handled mallet. With their long, red tunics, their high buskins, their pointed Etruscan beards, wide-brimmed felt hats and high, pointed false ears they are the ghastliest sight anyone could ask for so early in the morning. People jumped back with their thumbs protruding from their clenched fists or fished out tiny phallus amulets and pointed them at the
libitinarii
.

Wordlessly, the priest stepped up to the body and touched it with his mallet, claiming it for the underworld goddess. An attendant carrying a box opened it and the priest began a long chant, from time to time taking liquids or powders from the box, sprinkling them on the corpse. When the
lustrum
was finished, the attendant closed the box.

"Turn him over," Octavius instructed. The attendants crouched by the corpse. One of them plucked out the dagger and nonchalantly tossed it to the pavement. Grasping the corpse beneath the shoulders and knees, they rolled it over.

I did not recognize the man. He appeared to be about fifty years old, with sandy, graying hair. His mouth and eyes were open, but his face bore no readable expression. I saw that the other hand was equally beringed.

"Does anyone here know him?" Octavius asked loudly. Amid muttering and shrugs a man came forward.

"That's Manius Oppius, sir. He lives... lived not far from here. I've delivered sandals to his house a number of times. My shop's down there on the corner."

"Good. You can lead these men to his house. His family will want to claim his body." He turned to me. "Oppius. Aren't they bankers?"

"I believe so," I said. There was a commotion a little way up the street. An important man was coming, followed by a great mob of friends, clients and retainers.

"What now?" Octavius said with annoyance. Then his face registered alarm. "Oh, no! Stop him!" Then I saw who was in the lead and ran to block his way. It was Caius Julius Caesar. He smiled, puzzled, when he saw me.

"Good morning, Decius Caecilius. What is happening here?"

"There has been a murder, Caius Julius. Somebody stabbed an
eques
named Oppius. There is blood."

Caesar looked concerned. "Oppius? Not Caius Oppius, surely."

"A sandalmaker here says his name is Manius. The
Iudex
Octavius has taken over."

"I don't know any Manius Oppius, but Caius is friend of mine. I will make inquiries. Thank you for warning me, Decius. This could have been a terrible misfortune for the city." He drew a fold of his toga over his head as if he were offering sacrifice and he held a great fold of it draped over his arm, hiding his face from the body on the ground as he went on past, followed by his entourage. It was necessary but, being Caesar, he turned it into a broad, actor's gesture.

A few weeks before, the old
pontifex maximus
had finally died. To the immense amusement of the whole city, Caesar had been elected to his place. The man known for the frequency as well as the diversity of his debaucheries had become the high priest of the Roman state. One of the restrictions of the office was that the
pontifex maximus
could not look upon human blood.

"Does anyone have a coin for the ferryman?" the priest asked. Fumbling in my purse, I came up with a copper
as
and tossed it to one of the attendants, who placed it beneath the dead man's tongue. It was the least I could do for the unfortunate man, who had relieved the tedium of my day.

As the
libitinarii
lifted the corpse onto a folding stretcher, I stooped and picked up the dagger. The man's toga was ruined anyway, so I used it to wipe off the blade. Then I thought of something. "Is there any way to tell how long he's been dead?" I asked the funeral-men.

"He's not quite cold," said one. "And he hasn't gone stiff yet. I'd say he hasn't been dead more than two or three hours."

As the body was borne away Octavius and I turned our steps toward the Forum. I held the dagger up so that he could see it. "This is evidence," I said. "I call on you to witness that I am not bearing arms within the
pomerium
."

He laughed. "If we enforced that one, the courts would have nothing else to do. What sort of dagger is it?"

I shrugged. It was not the broad-bladed
pugio
of the legions, but neither was it the curved
sica
most favored by the city cutthroats. It was straight and double-edged, with a thick midrib reinforcing the blade. The hilt was of plain bronze, the grip a piece of bone with a serpent carved on it, rather crudely. Winding its long body from the hilt to the pommel, the serpent formed a raised, spiral rib that afforded an excellent grip. The pommel was a plain, mushroom-shaped cap of bronze.

"Just an ordinary sticker as far as I can see," I told him. "The kind you can buy in any cutler's shop."