The Catiline Conspiracy

Chapter I

That summer we received the news that Mithridates was dead. It was hard to credit at first. Mithridates had been a thorn in our side for so long that he seemed like a force of nature, as immutable as sunrise. Only the oldest citizens could remember a time when Mithridates had not been there to plague us. He died old and friendless, somewhere in the Cimmerian Bosphorus, plotting yet another sally against Rome, this time an invasion of Italy by way of the Danube. He was the most consistent of enemies and we would miss him. The news came in the midst of a splendid summer, one of the finest in living memory. It was a time of peace and prosperity. The civil wars of Marius and Sulla were fast fading from memory, the horrors of their murders and proscriptions seeming to belong to another age. Everywhere, Rome was victorious. In the East, Pompey was the overwhelming victor. He had smashed the Mediterranean pirates and then he had gone on to subdue Asia, Pontus and Armenia, robbing Lucullus of the final glory for which he had fought so long and so honorably. Crete had been subdued after a long and desultory campaign. Who was left to threaten Rome? Carthage had been exterminated generations before, its ruins plowed under and sown with salt so that nothing would grow there. The East, from Cilicia to Palestine, was under the Roman heel, only remote Parthia remaining independent. To the south, Egypt was a joke, fat and indolent as an overfed crocodile. Africa and Numidia were muzzled. In the west, Spain was a taxpaying province. To the north were some Gallic tribes that had not yet been civilized, wearing long hair and trousers and providing the comic playwrights with good material for laughs.

The answer, of course, was that we Romans would ourselves provide the enemy. We were poised on the brink of yet another series of civil wars, convulsions so vast that they would be fought all over the world. The wars were still years in the future, but as I look back upon it, that was the last summer of the old Republic. It died in the fall.

None of that was apparent at the time, though. There are those who would argue that it never truly died, that our esteemed First Citizen actually restored the Republic. That is the talk of fools and toadies. I am now too old to care what the First Citizen thinks of me, so I will describe these events as I lived them. If his ancestor, the Divine Julius, comes out looking less than godlike, it is because I knew Caius Julius back then and the First Citizen didn't. Hardly surprising, considering that the First Citizen was born that year. Fitting, in a way.

None of these weighty matters troubled us that summer. The most serious political controversy of the day was the action of the Praetor Otho. Four years before, as Tribune of the People, he had introduced a law reserving fourteen rows of seats in the theater for the equites, the moneyed-but-not-noble class. Now, as praetor, he upheld it. There were no riots, but he was hissed every time he went to the theater.

The great event of the season was the triumph of Lucullus. He had returned to Italy almost four years earlier and had petitioned the senate for permission to celebrate a triumph in recognition of his victories over Mithridates and Tigranes. Pompey had manipulated the Tribunes to block this, but Lucullus had finally been granted permission. Until that time, he had been compelled, by ancient custom, to dwell outside the walls of Rome, where he had company. Quintus Marcius Rex, the victor of Cilicia, and a kinsman of mine, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus, victor of Crete, were likewise blocked by Pompey's adherents from celebrating their hard-earned triumphs. Pompey had a simple interpretation of natural law: all the glory in the world belonged to him, and anybody else who got any was guilty of thieving.

The triumphal procession was a splendid one, for Lucullus had smashed some great armies and had taken immense booty at Tigranocerta and Artaxata and Nisibis. I watched this triumph wind its way into the Forum, from my place atop the Rostra, so I had a good view. First came the trumpeters, sounding shrill, snarling blasts on their instruments. Behind them came the standard-bearers of Lucullus's legions. These, like all soldiers in the procession, wore only their military boots and belts in token of their status. Armed soldiers were forbidden to enter the city by ancient law. After the standard-bearers came a float bearing a colossal reclining image of Jupiter with white sacrificial bulls in tow. Then there were more floats carried by soldiers, bearing great paintings of the battles. Then came more soldiers, all in snowy new tunics, gilded wreaths on their heads, palms of victory in their hands, draped with flower wreaths, showered with flower petals by pretty slave girls, accompanied by drummers and flute-players who kept up a shattering din.

Then there were trophy floats bearing the captured arms of the defeated enemy. These were artfully constructed to resemble the impromptu trophies set up on the battlefields in the old days, when the soldiers lopped the limbs from a nearby tree and hung it with captured weapons. Each of these floats bore such a tree, glittering with swords and spear-points, brilliant with polished armor and colorful with painted shields. Plumed helmets were scattered about among sheaves of arrows. Seated all around the bases of the trophies were dejected prisoners, bound and haltered. Considering the lapse in time between the victories and the triumph, these prisoners may have been hired stand-ins. After the trophies came yet more prisoners, more sacrificial animals, a whole train of musicians, and then the spectacle everyone was waiting for: the loot.

The gasps and cheers that greeted the plunder of Tigranocerta drowned out even the racket of the musicians. There were platters of solid gold, jeweled cups, chains of silver, carvings of ivory, chests decorated with amber, precious vases, crowns, scepters, fabulous works of art taken by the eastern monarchs from the Greek colonies. There were even signs painted on white wood giving the figures for ransoms and the sale of prisoners as slaves. There were bolts and heaps of brightly dyed silk, a fabric worth far more than its weight in gold. There were plain gold and silver bars, as large as building bricks and enough of them to build a medium-sized temple. All this was greeted with ecstatic outcries of Bacchic intensity. Say what you will about Romans as conquerors, we have always taken an honest delight in plunder, theft and rapine. It is one part of our souls that hypocrisy has never touched.

Finally, almost last in line, came the man of the hour, Lucius Licinius Lucullus Ponticus himself. The soldiers had already marched out of the city and had the gates shut behind them, because by yet another ancient law, a general and his soldiers could not be in the city at the same time. He looked like an Etruscan statue, dressed in a triumphal robe of Tyrian purple. Below his wreath of gilded laurel, his face was painted red, as were his hands which held a scepter and an olive branch. He rode in a gilded chariot drawn by four white horses and behind him stood a slave who, from time to time, whispered in his ear: "Remember, thou art mortal."

Last of all came one man, the most distinguished of the prisoners. Since Lucullus had not captured Mithridates, and Tigranes had made a deal with Pompey, this honor fell to one of the generals of Tigranocerta. The chariot rounded the Rostra and began its climb to the Capitol. At that time, the final prisoner was led away to the prison below the Capitol, where he was strangled. I could feel some sympathy for the man. I was clapped in the prison once, and it was an unpleasant place to occupy, much less to die in.

Only one thing marred the proceedings, and that was the condition of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where Lucullus was to sacrifice a bull upon being told of the prisoner's death. Two years before, lightning had struck the temple, and the haruspices had been consulted concerning the omen. They had pondered and duly proclaimed that the old statue of Jupiter must be replaced by a new, larger statue, this one facing east, toward the Forum. Once in place, this would aid the Senate and People in detecting plots against the state. On the day of Lucullus's triumph, the statue still stood outside the temple, where a huge hole had been made in the wall. Carefully and painfully, an inch at a time, it was being moved toward the hole.

The reason for my privileged position atop the Rostra was my office. I was quaestor that year, the lowest of the elected officials. Other quaestores acted as personal assistants to the Consuls, or traveled about Italy and even the overseas Roman holdings conducting inquiries and investigations, or at least got to go to Ostia to oversee the grain shipments. Not I. I, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, was assigned to the treasury. This meant that I spent my days in the Temple of Saturn overseeing the public slaves and freedmen who did the actual work. They would have a lot of work to do, after the triumph. Lucullus was to donate a handsome proportion of the plunder to the treasury and the military standards would be returned to their place of honor in the temple, until such time as those legions should be reactivated.

As I descended from the Rostra to the pavement, I had only pleasant prospects before me, always excepting my dismal duties in the treasury. As a public official, I was invited to the great banquet Lucullus would host that evening, following which he would sponsor several days of games in gratitude to the gods and in honor of his ancestors. There would be plays and races and combats and feasting, with an extra dole of grain, oil and wine to the public. Lucullus would dedicate a new temple to Minerva, which was his gift to the city.

And, it was a beautiful day. Rome was not a beautiful city, but the Forum with its magnificent public buildings and temples was the most majestic setting in the world, and that day it was draped in huge wreaths of flowers and was carpeted with the petals that had been strewn by the slaves and cast down upon the procession by people standing on balconies and rooftops. Everywhere, the city smelled of flowers, of incense rising from the temples, of the perfumes lavishly splashed on everyone at these celebrations.

It was with a light heart that I crossed the Forum to see to the storing of the gold and the standards. Official business was forbidden on a day of triumph, but an exception was naturally made in this case. I passed the Temple of Janus, that most Roman of deities whose two faces gazed out through the open front and back doors of his temple. The doors were shut only when no Roman soldiers were at war anywhere in the world. I did not know what the temple looked like with its doors shut, since they had never been closed in my lifetime. They had not been closed, in fact, since the reign of King Numa Pompilius, who had built the temple more than six hundred years before. There was a legend that the doors were closed for a few days during his reign. With a history like that, it is no wonder that we grew so adept at warfare.

At the Temple of Saturn I pretended to supervise while an old state freedman named Minicius, who had spent most of his life in the temple, performed the actual task. My own contribution had been to unlock the doors, since I was the quaestor entrusted with the keys that day. While the endless, sweating procession of slaves carried the loot into the treasury chambers below the temple, I watched the soldiers carefully and reverently place the standards in their holders, to be watched over by the age-blackened image of Saturn.

One of the soldiers, satisfied that he had placed a gleaming eagle properly, walked unsteadily over to me. He was very young, slightly drunk, and flower petals stuck to his sweaty arms.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, his voice thick with Gallic accent. "Could you tell me why the old gentleman there"-he jerked his chin toward the image of Saturn-"is wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy?"

I contemplated the statue. I had known it all my life, and it had never occurred to me how strange it must look to someone who had never before been to Rome, wrapped as it was in woolen bands.

"They are supposed to prevent him from leaving Roman territory," I informed the youth. "They are only loosened during Saturnalia."

"Might as well," the boy said. "Everybody else gets pretty loose then."

Just then Minicius came up from the basement, a scandalized look on his face. "You men should be back in your camp!" he said. "Soldiers aren't supposed to be in the city while the triumphator is within the pomerium!"

"Easy, old fellow," said a hard-faced veteran. "These are the sacred emblems of the legions and we have to see them stored properly."

"We promise not to overthrow the state while we're here," said another.

"Let it go, Minicius," I said. "Our soldiers deserve a little license on their day of triumph." The men saluted and left, respecting my aristocratic grammar if nothing else.

" Those are soldiers of Rome?" Minicius said. "I didn't hear a City accent among the lot."

I shrugged. "Except for officers, the legions are all provincials now. They've been that way since Gaius Marius. What City man ever takes service with the eagles any longer?"

"You need to sign for this next load, Quaestor," he reminded me. As we walked back toward the basement stair, a group of slaves came in through the front portal and, confused by the sudden dimness, went to the right, toward a low doorway in the wall.

"Not that way, you idiots!" Minicius shouted. "The treasury's this way!" He pointed to the stair that lay almost beneath Saturn's wool-wrapped feet.

"What's through that door?" I asked. I was not terribly familiar with the temple, except for the parts open to the public during festivals.

"Just stairs leading down to some old storerooms," Minicius told me. "Probably haven't been used in a hundred years. We ought to brick it up."

We went down into the basement and I watched while the treasure was put away and then signed for it. When everyone was gone except for Minicius, I locked the iron doors and we went back up the stairs.

Outside, evening was coming on. But the days of summer are long, and it was still bright. The city was still rollicking with its holiday cheer. It was almost time for the banquet to begin, and my stomach was reminding me that I had not eaten all day in anticipation of the feast.

The banquet was to be held in the beautiful garden adjoining the new temple Lucullus was to dedicate the next day. I descended the steps and turned in the direction of the garden. I saw a man walking toward me through the rejoicing throng. He wore a purple-striped senator's tunic and his feet were bare. I groaned. A Senator's tunic coupled with bare feet meant one thing: Marcus Porcius Cato, the most formidably boring man in Roman politics. He attributed all the ills of the day to our failure to live as simply as had our ancestors. He regarded himself as the exemplar and embodiment of antique virtue. The early Romans had not worn shoes, so he didn't either. He had just won election as Tribune for the next year, hinting all the way that it would be unpatriotic and an insult to our ancestors not to vote for him. He gave me a good old-Roman salute.

"Hail, Quaestor! It is good to see an official who is ready to look after his duties even on a holiday."

I jerked a thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the temple. "There are about fifty million sesterces in there with my name on them. When I'm out of office next year, some fool is sure to prosecute me for embezzlement if I can't account for every last copper as."

"Most conscientious," Cato said, utterly immune to irony. "I am on my way to the banquet of Lucullus. Will you accompany me?"

With no graceful way out, I agreed, keeping pace with him in my decadent, degenerate sandals. He stepped out at the standard legionary pace, which was decidedly more vigorous than my customary urban amble.

"It was a splendid triumph, splendid!" Cato said. "I fought tirelessly in the Senate to obtain this honor for Lucullus."

"Your efforts have been an inspiration to us all," I assured him.

"Pompey's supporters have grown insufferable. Did you know that Balbus and Labienus are trying to push through a law that will allow Pompey the right to wear the garments and attributes of a triumphator at all public games?"

Hardened cynic that I was, I stumbled at this news. "Are you serious?"

"I am always serious," he said seriously.

"This is going a bit far," I admitted. "Of course, you can expect something like this from a man who named himself 'the Great' when he was barely in his twenties."

"A bit far? It is impious! An affront to the immortal gods! What next? A crown, perhaps?" Cato's face had gone quite red. It looked as if apoplexy might snatch him from our midst, a prospect I was prepared to accept with philosophical resignation.

"Now Lucullus," he said, calming, "is a general of the old Roman type. I cannot condone his taste for luxury, but the way he disciplines his legions is exemplary. His administration of the Asian cities was a model of honesty and efficiency."

I had to agree with that. It was also merciful, but that was not something Cato would have perceived as virtuous. We were walking downhill, toward the river. While Lucullus had waited in his villa outside the city, his agents had purchased a piece of unused, marshy ground that had never produced anything but mosquitoes. They had drained it, laid out and planted the lovely garden, and erected the fine temple to the goddess of wisdom and patroness of craftsmen. At that date, she had not yet fully taken on the attributes of the Greek Athena, to become a patroness of war.

Images of all the state gods had been set up at the entrance to the garden, along with an altar to the unknown god. Cato insisted on stopping before each to toss a pinch of incense onto the coals glowing in braziers beneath them. As we walked into the grove, a leather-lunged herald announced us.

"Senator Marcus Porcius Cato and the Quaestor Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger!" he bellowed. I tipped him and complimented him on his splendid volume.

"You're the second Decius Metellus I've announced, sir," he said.

"Oh, my father is here?"

"Yes, sir, and several of the Quintuses."

Perhaps I should explain here. I come of a pestilentially numerous family, distinguished beyond words, one of the most important families in politics, but dreadfully unimaginative in the way of names. For generations, most of the males have been named Quintus. In that particular year, there were no fewer than five in public life, all named Quintus. Of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus, waiting outside the walls for his triumph, I have already made mention. He was not granted permission until the next May. There was the Praetor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer. The Pontifex Maximus Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, under whom I had served in Spain, lay on his deathbed; and his adopted son, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica, was also a pontifex. Rounding out the lot was Pompey's legate, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos, who had that year returned from Asia and, like Cato, had won election to the next year's Tribunate. For purposes of clarity, I shall henceforth refer to them as Creticus, Celer, Pius, Scipio and Nepos.

I took my leave of Cato and made my way into the crowd. All the most distinguished men in Rome were there, even Lucullus's enemies. A triumph was, after all, a gesture of gratitude to the gods of the state, so it was not considered hypocritical to have a good time at your enemy's victory banquet. Long tables had been set up between the rows of fragrant trees, some of them almost full-grown, that had been brought up the Tiber in barges, their roots balled in great masses of dirt. The planting of this garden had been a logistical feat on a par with building a pyramid.

A large number of women were there as well, many of them as important in the affairs of the city as their husbands, some merely infamous. It was a great time for infamous women. A troop of stately Vestals lent dignity to the occasion, one of them my aunt.

I made no attempt to greet the guests in any orderly fashion, as would have been expected at an ordinary gathering. I did seek out the Consuls. A junior official was expected to be able to find them in any size of crowd. The Consuls for that famous year were, as everyone remembers, even now, Marcus Tullius Cicero and Caius Antonius Hibrida. I found them with Lucullus, greeting some of the throng of foreign ambassadors who always were honored guests at this sort of affair. It was thought a good idea to impress upon foreigners how inevitably preeminent we Romans were in war, and how magnanimous we could be. Some of the guests were former enemies who had surrendered on good terms, rather than prolonging their foolish resistance.

Cicero had achieved the height of his dignity. He was a man who had come from nowhere (that is to say, he was not from Rome but from Arpinum, a town that had enjoyed Roman citizenship for a mere 125 years), and had risen through the world of Roman politics with the speed and force of a stone hurled from a catapult. He was what we called novus homo in those days, a "new man" not belonging to one of the old political families. This did not sit well with a good many of his contemporaries, but few men win the consulship without acquiring enemies along the way.

His colleague, Hibrida, had been last among the candidates, but had won through Cicero's support. This was the sort of political deal that went by the wonderfully apt name of coitio. As an Antonine, Hibrida had all that family's famous combination of geniality and vicious-ness, of astuteness and childish impulsiveness. This dichotomy was even more pronounced in Caius Antonius than in most of his family. His odd cognomen, which refers to the offspring of a domestic sow and a wild boar, was bestowed in recognition of his half-savage nature.

He was in a good mood that evening and took my hand heartily. His face was flushed and he was well on his way to drunkenness, even at that early hour, another Antonine characteristic.

"Good to see you, Decius, my boy. Splendid triumph, today, eh?" I could see that the sight of all that gold had done him good. The Antonines were also famously greedy, although by way of compensation they spent as freely as they stole. They were fearsomely violent and rapacious, but nobody ever said they weren't generous.

"A glorious occasion," I agreed, "and well earned by the triumphator." I nodded toward where Lucullus stood, in a plain toga now and with the red paint washed off, amid a crowd of well-wishers.

"It makes me eager to accomplish something of the sort myself," Hibrida admitted. This, I thought, did not bode well for Macedonia, the proconsular province he would govern after his year in office.

Cicero greeted me as warmly, although with somewhat more formality. We had always got along well together, but at this time he had achieved the peak of public service and I was at the bottom. By this time he had acquired the vanity and self-importance that marred his otherwise admirable character. I had liked him better when he was younger.

The smells of the feast-in-preparation made my stomach grumble and I fought down the urge to grab one of the cups being passed so freely about. Brawny slaves strolled about with heavy amphorae balanced on their shoulders, making sure that the cups stayed full. If I were to start drinking too soon, I might not remember the banquet at all.

Standing beneath a lovely cypress was a very unlovely man. A great scar crossed his face, nearly halving his nose. This was my father, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Elder, but known to all and sundry as Cut-Nose, for obvious reasons. He was dressed in a snowy toga and immense dignity. He had recently returned from his proconsular province of transalpine Gaul, and had not yet recovered from the godlike status of that office. I went to speak to him and he greeted me in his usual fashion.

"Still sober, eh? Responsible office must have improved you. How goes it at the treasury?" He took it as a sign of my ineptitude and unpopularity that I hadn't been given one of the better quaestorial assignments. He was right.

"Lucullus should have built us a new temple to Saturn," I replied. "We'll be stacking the loot on the roof soon."

"You'll find out soon enough that it flows out as fast as it comes in. Faster, more often." His look was even more sour than usual, probably because he had never celebrated a triumph and now would probably never have the chance. His proconsulship had been without a decent war. He was scowling at a strange-looking group of men who stood by an ornamental pond, admiring the carp, drinking heavily and appearing uncomfortable. A few were decently shorn and togaed, but most had long hair and mustaches and wore tunics with trousers, vividly colored in patterns of stripes and checks.

"Who are those?" I asked Father.

"Allobroges. They're a pack of savages from the northern part of my former province. They've come to town to complain about extortion on the part of Roman officials. They'll probably get some ambitious lawyer to bring me up on charges."

"Complaining of Roman extortion has become a minor branch of philosophy," I noted. "Any justice on their side?"

"They're just born troublemakers who can't stand to pay their taxes," Father said. "Oh, I won't say the local publicans haven't turned the thumbscrews a bit too tight from time to time, but that's to be expected. It's nothing compared to what their old chiefs used to put them through. They're just sulking because we won't let them fight each other anymore."

"Well, Father, now that you're home," I said, bored with the subject, "what do you plan to do?"

"Do? Why my usual duties as patron and friend, what else?" he said innocently. He looked as innocent as a man with a bloody dagger in his fist.

"There will be an election of Censors next year," I reminded him, as if he needed it. "The office used to be a family tradition. No Metellan has held it in ages."

"And why should I not stand for Consul again?" he said. "I will be eligible in seven years."

"Father," I said, finally taking one of the winecups being offered by the servers, "in seven years, all of our generals will be fighting for that office. They'll have their armies camped outside the gates to remind the citizens how to vote. That's no time for a moderate like you to be standing for Consul. The censorship, now, is the capstone of a political career. How many men have ever held every office, including that one?"

Father nodded as if he hadn't been thinking the same thing for years. "True," he grumbled. "And it is a family tradition."

This set my mind at ease. He was not seriously considering a run for the consulship. The censorship, on the other hand, carried no imperium and thus was not coveted by generals. What it did carry was the power to purge the roll of Senators deemed unworthy. I was sure that Father was already at work on his list.

The wine, an excellent Caecuban, struck my senses with inspiration. "Father, why wasn't I named Quintus?"

"Eh? Why, because you were named after me, idiot!"

"It's just that it seems every other male in the family is named Quintus except for the odd Lucius."

"Your grandfather, whose mask you pass every time you enter my house, was visited by the Dioscuri in a dream. They promised him victory over the Samnites the next day if he would name his firstborn son Decius, a name never before used in gens Caecilii."

"Did he win?" I asked.

Father glared at me. It was something he did well. "This is a rather large banquet. I am sure there are many fools who would relish your company and conversation. And get a wreath."

I went in search of more congenial company. Heeding Father's warning, I took a wreath and a garland from a slave girl. Vine leaves, guaranteed to forestall drunkenness. In the center of the garden had been set up the paintings of Lucullus's battles that had been carried in the triumph. I went to examine them while the light held. Soon the torches would be lit, providing excellent illumination for intrigue or seduction, but not the best for appreciating art.

These huge panels had been commissioned from the best studios of Athens and Rhodes. They depicted, with wonderful liveliness and detail, the greatest battles of the campaigns against Mithridates and Tigranes. Lucullus was always shown slightly outsized, in the middle of the action. The foreign kings were likewise larger than life, but were always depicted in terrified flight. In their usual fashion, the Greek artists had depicted the Roman soldiers armed like the warriors of Alexander's day or even earlier, in muscled breastplate, high-plumed helmet and great, round shield and bearing a long pike. But the dead and dismembered barbarians littering the bottom of each panel were painted most realistically.

"Nicely executed, don't you think?" The man who spoke was an old friend, the physician Asklepiodes, who treated the gladiators of the Statilian school. He had become famous for his writings about the human body and how to treat its wounds.

"Beautiful," I said. "But the artists ought to take the trouble to find out what Roman soldiers look like before they try to paint them."

"It would make no difference," he said. "Greek artists are taught to revere the ideal and paint what is beautiful. Roman military equipment is ugly and functional, so they go back to the graceful designs of antiquity." He leaned forward and peered at a picture of Lucullus. "You see, the general is shown here as a handsome young man, which is not how he looked when I spoke to him a few minutes ago."

I leaned closer to see for myself. "You are right. He didn't look that good in red paint and a purple robe." I straightened and strolled down to another painting. "How goes your work?"

"I may remove to Capua for a while. The Statilian school in Rome will close down temporarily, until a new one is built."

"Closing down? Why?"

"Haven't you heard? General Pompey has bought the property. He plans to demolish the school and its anciliary buildings to erect a magnificent new theater with an attached meetinghouse for the Senate. It will be a permanent building of stone, in the Greek fashion."

"Leave it to Pompey to come up with something outrageous like that," I commented. About a century before this time, somebody had begun a permanent, Greek-style theater, but the Censors had ordered it demolished before it was completed in order to combat encroaching Greek laxness of morals. We had only had temporary, wooden theaters since that time, complete, now, with their fourteen infamous rows reserved for the equites. As it turned out, Pompey forestalled criticism by building his tremendous theater with a little temple to Venus Victrix atop it, so that he could say that the seats were actually steps to a temple. He was not without a sense of humor.

A bellow from the heralds announced the beginning of the feast, and I sought my place eagerly. A servant guided me to the central table, at the head of which reclined Lucullus himself. A single, long couch ran the length of the table, beyond which was a narrow space for the servers, and then a lovely pool at one end of which stood a statue of Juno with one of Venus at the other. In the water, performers costumed as Tritons and Nereids frolicked. This was the most distinguished table, with the Consuls and praetores, along with proconsuls and pontifices, further down the aediles and quaestores. As the least of these, I was well down toward the foot of the table, but it was nonetheless a great honor to lie at his table on such a day. I could almost have hit his couch with a javelin.

A slave took my sandals and I sprawled on the couch just as the servers began to set platters before us. Lucullus had always been noted for his taste for luxury, but this was the first of the banquets for which he became even more famed than for his victories. These were noted not only for the excellence of the food, but for their theatrical effects. The first platter set before me and the diners near me, for instance, consisted of hard-boiled and baked eggs of many species of birds in a framework of pastry, ascending tier upon tier, forming a model of the great Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria. Perfumed oil burned in a bowl at its crest.

The succeeding dishes continued the nautical theme. A trireme sailed by rowed by roast suckling pigs, which slaves dressed as sailors transferred to the table. Roast fowl were brought, with their feathers replaced so that they appeared to be alive, but they had been cunningly joined to the bodies and tails of mullets, so that they looked like mythical, hybrid sea creatures.

Lest we starve between these imaginative servings, the tables were heaped with more prosaic eatables: breads, cheeses, nuts, olives, tiny grilled sausages and so forth. All of this was washed down with excellent wines, any one of which would have been the showpiece of an ordinary banquet. Besides the noble Falernian, Lucullus served the finest wines of Gaul and Judea, the Greek islands, Africa and Spain. For the adventurous, there were novelties such as date wine from Egypt and berry wines from Armenia, taken at the siege of Tigranocerta. One of the best was from nearer home; an unusually fine vintage from the slopes of Vesuvius.

"I think our host is confused," said someone to my left. I twisted around so I could see who it was.

"Confused?" I said.

"Yes," said a red-haired, red-faced man who examined the beautiful embossed figures decorating the bottom of his cup. Instantly, a slave filled it. "I think he should have built that temple to Bacchus, not Minerva."

"Hello, Lucius," I said. "I've been so busy gorging myself I didn't notice who was near me."

"We can always socialize. How often do we get a chance to eat like this?" He reached out and seized a grilled rib of a wild German aurochs. The whole rack of ribs had been formed into the likeness of Neptune's crown.

This was Lucius Sergius Catilina, a man I knew slightly. He had sought the consulship more than once and the most recent time had come close to winning. There had been such hard feelings that Cicero had worn armor to the elections. Catilina could put up a jovial front, but inwardly he was consumed with envy for all who were richer and more successful.

"I never thought to see you at the same table as Cicero, even at such a distance." It was not the most diplomatic thing to say, but I had been loath to waste all that splendid wine. Luckily, he took it with good humor.

"Even the sight of that face won't spoil my appetite for a feast like this. Here, boy," he called, holding up his cup, "more of that Judaean."

"Too bad Cato doesn't share your delight in this bounty," I observed. Several places up from me, Cato was restricting himself to bread, cheese, olives, and occasional bits of grilled meat or fish. He drank as much as anyone else, though.

"Do you know why Cato drinks so much while he rails against all other forms of indulgence?" Catilina asked.

"Why is that?" I tore into a roast kid that had been part of the Argo's crew just moments before. The ship made its stately way along the table as the slaves reduced its crew at each place.

"It's because it hurts so much the next morning." We both found this extremely funny and laughed immoderately. Catilina could be good company when he put himself out, and he was putting himself out that evening.

"Someday, Decius," he said, pouring a bit of wine on the ground in token of a vow, "I'll be able to give a banquet like this."

"The way Pompey's going," I said, "there won't be anybody left to triumph over."

"There will always be plenty of enemies," he assured me. "At least men like Pompey and Lucullus have earned their places of honor. What is Rome coming to when a jumped-up lawyer reaches the highest position over men who have given their lives in service to the state? Men who are of the highest birth?" That was more like Catilina. He was a patrician and, like most such, thought his birth entitled him to office. Then he changed direction again.

"Ah, don't listen to me. I can talk like that every day. This is an occasion for rejoicing. Hard to believe, isn't it, old Mithridates dead, I mean? He was causing us grief back in the consulship of Claudius and Perperna, back when Sulla was still propraetor in Cilicia." He took on a nostalgic look as the next course was served; lark's tongues in caper sauce, as I recall. Catilina had been one of Sulla's more bloodthirsty supporters during the proscriptions and had done well out of them. He had good cause to be nostalgic, for the newer generation of politicians, men like Cato and Caesar, were pushing for prosecution of Sulla's executioners as his old supporters faded from power.

Thinking of this, I looked around to see where Caius Julius might be. He and his brother Lucius were not in office that year, but they had been given a praetorian appointment under a bill introduced by the Tribune Labienus to try the eques and financier Rabirius for the murder, almost forty years before, of the Tribune Saturninus. Considering what the times had been like, this was rather like prosecuting a gladiator for his victories, so the obsolete charge of perduellio had to be brought against the old man, relating to the semi-sacred status of the Tribunes of the Plebs. Oddly, his son later became a fervent supporter of Caesar, but then, sons and fathers often do not agree, I have noticed.

Finally, I spotted Caius Julius at another table, keeping company with that gaggle of Allobroges. This struck me as odd, because I never knew Caius Julius to socialize with anybody unless he had a political motive, and those long-haired barbarians certainly had no votes in the assemblies. All I could imagine was that he had arrived late and that was the only place left.

Trained slaves appeared, white-robed and carrying lyres, their brows wreathed with laurel leaves. These began to stroll among the tables, declaiming Homer and the odes of Pindar. This was a signal for the first break in the banquet. Most of us pushed heavily to our feet, put on our sandals and staggered off to let some of our intake settle. There was a public bathhouse next to the garden, and this was being kept open, manned and luxuriously equipped for the whole night.

The light of hundreds of lamps shimmered off the agitated water as I entered. I put off my admiration until later, for I had more urgent business to transact and made a straight line for the privy. That facility had more than a hundred seats, but there was still some jostling, as a few of the feasters had to be helped onto their seats by slaves. Elsewhere, others, even more overcome by their overindulgence, vomited in prolonged, roaring convulsions. I ignored these with a superior air. I was proud of my absorptive capacities in those days.

Intensely relieved, I reentered the main room, which in this house contained a swimming pool in which a number of the younger guests disported themselves. Respectable women did not mingle promiscuously with men at the public baths, but there were a few decidedly nonrespectable women circulating, some of them quite highborn. I recognized at least two senator's wives and the sister of a pontifex. As I made my way toward the steam bath, a feminine voice hailed me. I looked to see who it was but the crowd had grown dense.

"Down here, in the water." I walked to the lip of the pool and knelt by a damp, brown-locked head. It was my cousin Caecilia who, since all of my female cousins are named Caecilia, we called Felicia, not because she was happy but for her catlike looks and temperament. She was the daughter of that Creticus who waited outside the walls of Rome, and had recently wed Marcus Crassus, eldest son of the ex-Consul who had defeated Spartacus.

"This is naughty for a lady so recently married in so respectable a ceremony," I chided.

She rested her chin on crossed forearms and kicked her pretty feet in the water. "Don't be silly. I was married off because our family and the Crassi wanted to mend fences after being at odds for so long and with Pompey coming back soon. I am just a knucklebone on the great game board of politics."

"Knucklebones are hard and knobby, which scarcely describes you, cousin. Where is your fortunate husband, by the way?"

"Snoring on the couch, when I left him. I have no intention of missing any part of an occasion like this, so I came here to refresh myself. Why don't you join me?"

I stood. "Some other time, Felicia. Dignity of office, and so forth."

" Quaestor?" she snorted. "That's not an office, it's a sentence!"

I winced at her cruel but accurate assessment of my place in the scheme of things, and took my leave. In the exercise yard, a troupe of gladiators were going through a series of mock duels, using blunted weapons but wearing their most splendid armor. I passed their clash and clatter and found the steam room. There I gave my clothes and wreaths to an attendant, took a pile of towels and went into the muggy heat. In the dimness, I found a bench and sat. In moments, I was sweating like a legionary at the end of a long day.

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.