The Catiline Conspiracy

Chapter XI

I decided to blame it all on Aurelia. After all, if she had not ensnared me with her feminine wiles, my mind would have functioned normally. What man can plot and scheme rationally, when he has surrendered all his higher faculties and functions to woman-induced lust? Thus I salved my pride, as young men have done since remotest antiquity. This however did not bring about the slightest abatement of my feelings toward that woman. I dreamt of her constantly and held to my perverse hope that she was entirely innocent.

For two days after the family gathering I fretted thus, having no new word from Catilina and no idea of how to proceed on my own. Then, as I left the temple and made my way to the baths, Valgius accosted me, being elaborately casual about it, as if anyone were paying the slightest attention.

"We meet tonight at the house of Laeca," he said, almost hissing the words. "Be there as soon as it is dark. The time is near. Good job on Asklepiodes, by the way." He spoke as one craftsman to another.

At last. Surely, Catilina had to move soon, if this conspiracy were to be anything but talk. And there had already been too many murders for these men to confine themselves to mere words. I proceeded to the baths as if nothing was amiss. In fact, I took my time and luxuriated in the best bathhouse in Rome, using the cold, tepid and hot pools followed by the steam room, then back into the cold pool and finishing off on the masseur's table. I knew that it might be a very long time before I should be able to enjoy this homely, tranquil pleasure again.

At home I made out my will, something I used to do frequently in times of disorder, uncertainty and stress. Having made disposition of my negligible property, I armed myself and went out into the darkening streets. It is one of the most annoying aspects of conspiracy that it compels one to blunder about the streets at night. I got lost several times trying to find the house of Laeca, and it is always embarrassing to have to pound on doors and ask directions.

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.

But the temptation was always there, to revel in the swinishness of civil rapine and butchery, the mob glutting itself on blood and loot, heedless of the hangover that follows every great debauch. And what did they care? Civic participation in government had become little more than a hollow shell, now that a professional army did all the fighting and a few dozen families supplied most of the statesmen and slaves did most of the work. What did the people care whether a Cicero or a Catilina lorded it over them? Even a temporary respite from their misery would be desirable. That, and a little excitement.

Cato opened my door with his usual sour looks and words. "Late again. Not only that, but this woman came calling for you this evening, and she insisted on waiting. She's in the atrium."

Puzzled and dripping, I went in. A heavily veiled woman rose at my entrance. No quantity of veils could hide that shape. "Aurelia!" I gasped.

She threw back the veils that covered her face. I would have embraced her but Cato made a scandalized sound. "Go to bed, Cato," I ordered. Grumbling, he left the atrium. Then I could hear his voice and his wife's coming from their quarters.

"Decius," Aurelia said, "don't you think you should dry yourself?"

I looked down at myself. Every fiber I wore water onto my tiled floor. More water dripped from my hair. My dagger, I decided, was probably getting rusty.

"I think there are some towels in my bedroom," I said, "Wait here."

I went to my room and stripped off my clothing, snatched up a towel and began drying myself vigorously, As I rubbed at my hair I discovered that there was an extra pair of hands working the towel.

"Do you mind if I help?" Aurelia asked.

"Your impatience is flattering," I told her. I turned and saw that she had already loosened her clothing. I needed only a few moments to finish the task, then she wore only her pearls. I was baffled by her presence there on that particular night, but my need for her drove all questions from my mind. She covered my lips with hers and we sank onto my narrow, bachelor's bed. Our ingenuity made up for the inadequacy of the furniture and the oil in my lamp was as exhausted as I was before I had breath to spare for questions.

"Catilina said that you and your mother were safe in the country," I said. I lay on my back and she lay half-across me, her cheek and both hands on my chest.

"I came back," she said. "I could not stay away from you."

As deeply as I wished to believe this, I could not but note that she had successfully stayed away from me for quite a while. Had she been sent to spy on me? To make sure that I reported to no one tonight? But Catilina and his followers acted with such desperate recklessness that such a precaution seemed alien to them.

"The city is too dangerous for you now," I insisted. "How much do you know of your stepfather's plans?"

She stretched. "Enough to know that he will soon be the ruler of Rome. What of it?"

"Within a few days he will be declared a public enemy by the Senate," I said. "When that happens, no member of his family will be safe. There will be blood in the streets again, Aurelia."

She stifled a yawn. "There is always blood in the streets. Usually it's common blood. A little noble blood is about to flow. Is that something to get excited about?"

"It is if the blood is yours," I said, then added "or mine."

"You mean you aren't anxious to throw your life away for your new Consul?" She snuggled closer against me and slid a leg over my hip.

"The whole idea behind a coup," I told her, "is to get someone else to sacrifice himself for your own advantage. That's what we are all in this for, after all. I could die heroically serving in some foreign war, without risking disgrace. I joined your stepfather's cause in order to reach high office without having to wait for fifty elder Metellans to die first."

"That's my Decius," she said. "The others are fools, just cattle to be sacrificed, but you know what this rebellion is truly about. Of all my stepfather's followers, only you have real intelligence."

"Followers are there to be used," I said. "But what of the men even Catilina must defer to?" Even here I could not stop probing for information. With my left hand I stroked her spine, but this was not merely a caress. I was feeling for the involuntary tension that would precede a lie.

"What do you mean?" she asked sleepily.

"He told me that Crassus supported him." It was a wild try, but I was desperate for any sort of confirmation of my suspicions.

"He told you that?" she said, waking up. "Then you truly stand high in his estimation. I thought he had kept that secret from his closest companions."

It was true. I had it at last but not, as Cicero demanded it, in writing. And there was admiration in her voice. I was an even more important man than she had thought. I knew about Crassus.

She yawned again. "He told you about meeting with Crassus last night?"

"No," I said, my scalp tingling. "The others were present."

"Crassus came to my mother's house last night, after dark. They went into one of the rooms and closed the door. It sounded like they were arguing." Her voice drifted off.

So another knucklebone had taken an unexpected hop on the game board. Had Crassus reneged, after leading Catilina on? That would explain the shaken confidence Catilina had shown. If so, why? Had Crassus given up on the plot as misconceived or incompetently implemented? Or had he never been serious about his support in the first place? As I pondered it, I decided that this was the most likely explanation.

With Pompey in the East and Lucullus in retirement, with at least one of the praetores involved in the conspiracy, Crassus was the most distinguished general left near the Capitol, with many veterans ready to come at his call and rally to the eagles. He expected that the Senate, in a panic, would call upon him to crush the rebellion, perhaps even name him Dictator for the duration of the emergency.

But Cicero had already taken steps to prevent that. He might not take direct action to impeach Crassus, but he would make sure that the military command against Catilina was spread among as many commanders as possible. And in this he was undoubtedly wise and prudent. The enemy here would be no Pyrrhus, Hannibal, Jugurtha or Mithridates, nor even a Spartacus. No unified command would be necessary against what was essentially several packs of bandits raising insurrection in various parts of Italy.

All of this was a fascinating puzzle to work out, but it was not my main concern. What was happening in Rome, all over Italy and in far-flung parts of the empire that night was a splendid example of the chicanery, treachery, double-dealing and conspiracy that had become the lifeblood of Roman politics. And very little of it was my concern, now that I had notified Cicero of my findings.

What had concerned me from the beginning had been the murders. I do not like murders in my city, especially those involving peaceable citizens. I now had all but one accounted for. They were creditors murdered as part of an initiation rite by Catilina's followers.

The one that did not fit the pattern was the murder of Decimus Flavius, at the Circus. He was not a moneylender and he had died in a strange place, killed with an uncommon weapon. I had a question to ask, and it was one I had wanted to avoid since seeing her at the Circus that morning. Gently, I shook Aurelia to wake-fulness, keeping my fingers against her spine.

"Aurelia, wake up."

She blinked. "What?"

"I need to know something. Were you with Valgius and Thorius when they killed Decimus Flavius?" My fingertips felt the tension that crawled along her spine.

"No. Why do you ask, anyway? He was just another eques." She came wide awake with indignation. "Was his death any worse than that of the Greek physician you killed?"

"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.

Catilina was there, and he tried to brazen it out, proclaiming his innocence and protesting the malicious machinations of his enemies.

But Catilina was never the orator Cicero was, and he had few friends in the Senate. He began to rage, and the Senators jeered at him and demanded that he resign and leave Rome. The whole plot was not out yet, but there was enough known that Catilina had become like a diseased dog, snarling in the midst of a pack that has turned on him. I do not use the image without reason, for many of the men in the Senate were as bad as Catilina, or worse. He was just bolder than most.

At last, hurling curses and imprecations, Catilina stormed out, shouting something about "bringing it all down on your heads" or something of the sort. I heard many versions of his parting words. I do not think anyone heard him clearly.

When he was gone, Cicero, for reasons that seemed best to him, probably oratorical ones, waited for calm to return to the Senate chamber. It also gave Catilina time to get away, a calculated move on Cicero's part, I think. When he rose to speak, he held high a piece of papyrus that looked familiar to me.

Amid the stunned silence, he explained what it was, and how it had come into his hands. He cleared the Allobrogian envoys of wrongdoing and explained the role of Fabius Sanga. It restored the shaken spirit of the Senate to hear the ancient name of Fabius mentioned as a preserver of the state. Then he began to read the names. Shouts of rage and indignation greeted the recital of each name. Then I heard my own name read out. The men to either side of me stepped away as if I had some rare new disease. With unutterable relief I heard Cicero's next words:

"The Quaestor Decius Caecilius Metellus attended the meetings of the conspirators with my knowledge. He acted under authority granted him by the Praetor Metellus Celer. He is innocent of any wrongdoing." Now the men to either side took my sweaty hand and clapped me on the back. Then I was instantly forgotten as the speech continued. When Bestia's name was read out my cousin Nepos stood.

"The tribune-elect Bestia was never a part of the conspiracy!" he shouted. "He acted on behalf of General Pompey to ferret out this plot to endanger Rome and put the empire under the yoke of tyranny."

Cicero's face went scarlet, but his voice dripped with the sort of sarcasm only Cicero could muster. "How convenient. And since when has our esteemed and illustrious General Pompey had the authority to assign spies within the city of Rome? The last time I consulted the tables of the law, a proconsul wields imperium only within the borders of his assigned province. Is this some new interpretation of the Sibylline Books I have not been informed of?" It was no use. Pompey was just too popular, especially among the commons, who had little respect for the legal niceties. Bestia would be safe. I was galled by the knowledge. I wondered which of the equites he had killed to retain credibility with the conspirators. I determined to look into it, when all this was over.

And it would not be over for some time. Before the Senate session was done, Catilina and his followers were declared public enemies. This was only the beginning. Lamps were brought in as the daylight dimmed and messengers ran to and fro. Senators sent their slaves to their homes or to the taverns and stalls of the food sellers. They ate standing, on the steps of the Curia, talking among themselves in small groups.

State scribes scribbled frantically as commands were authorized, drafted and sent out. Mobilization orders flew about like so many birds. Magistrates were appointed to arrest the conspirators wherever they might be found. We junior magistrates were given orders to organize night watches to guard against arson. At last, we thought, something to do!

The next day, a number of the conspirators were apprehended. In this day of the First Citizen, with his reorganization of the vigiles into a true, and very efficient, police force, it may be wondered that so many public enemies moved about at will during a state of emergency, and that Catilina and a number of his followers escaped from the city without difficulty.

The fact was that Rome in those days had no police, and no mechanism for apprehending and incarcerating large numbers of felons. Ordinarily, when an arrest order was handed down, a praetor or curule aedile, accompanied by lictors, would approach the subject and summon him to court. The actual arrest was carried out by the lictors, using an ancient formula. If there was resistance, the magistrate would call upon any citizens nearby to aid him and they would haul the arrestee to court by force, if need be. This procedure was clearly inadequate when dealing with the conspirators.

At first, there was support for Catilina, especially among the ruined and the destitute. You will earn few enemies in Rome by attacking moneylenders and promising to cancel debts. For a while, Catilina's thugs roamed freely, made streetcorner speeches, and in general made life precarious for anyone in public office or belonging to a distinguished family.

The tide began to turn irrevocably against them on the third day after Catilina's flight, when all the stories about planned arson came out and several fire-raisers were caught in the act. After that, there was no sympathy for the Catalinarians in Rome, and a good deal of summary justice instead.

During this time, I was kept too busy to brood over Catilina or Aurelia. I organized a band of vigiles and we patrolled the streets during the hours of darkness, carrying torches and lanterns, occasionally running into other such bands, and avoiding brawls by shouting out watchwords at one another. Occasionally we encountered drunken bands of Catilina's supporters and then we brawled in earnest. It was deadly serious, but everyone seemed to enjoy it immensely. In years to come we were to get a bellyful of such activity, but at the time it was a welcome relief after the boring years of peace and prosperity.

The young equites, remembering their military tradition, armed themselves and formed self-appointed guard units around the homes of magistrates and distinguished men, foiling any planned assassination attempts. Seeing all of this half-organized, half-military activity, Cicero gave in to the inevitable and on the afternoon of the day following Catilina's flight the chief herald ascended the Rostra. For the first time since the sacrifice of the October Horse, his huge voice boomed through the Forum.

"OFF WITH THE TOGA AND ON WITH THE SAGUM!" At this a tremendous cheer erupted. This was another of those ancient formulae, and its meaning was that the Roman people, as a whole, were under military discipline. All citizens were to take off the garment of peace and assume the red cloak of war. It was the last time this formula was ever to be used in Rome.

And so I clattered importantly about in my red cloak and hobnailed caligae, although I did not wear sword or armor within the pomerium. With my old retainer Burrus acting as centurion, I commanded a light century of fifty vigiles and had all the fun of soldiering without having to leave the city and live in a leaky tent. My father and his formidable pack of retainers guarded the Ostian Gate, and he grumbled because he wasn't given one of the field commands.

During this time, I had one moment of great satisfaction. Under rigorous questioning, a captured Catalinarian revealed that word had reached the city that full-scale arson was to begin. That night, with a half score of my men, I waited in hiding outside the Circus Maximus until I saw two shadowy figures dash beneath the arcades. I waited a few minutes longer, then signaled my men to dash into the tunnel where I knew we would find them. We had slung our caligae around our necks and ran barefoot to make no sound. We covered our lanterns with our cloaks and were like ghosts as we crossed the pave.

Within the tunnel, I whipped my cloak from my lantern and others did the same. The sudden light revealed the white, bearded and terrified faces of Valgius and Thorius. The two were crouched over a smoking, low-flaming fire at the base of the great trash heap.

"Quintus Valgius and Marcus Thorius," I shouted as one of my men doused the fire with a bucket of water, "in the name of the Senate and People of Rome, I arrest you! Come with me to the praetor." I had hoped they would resist, but they broke down in tears and supplications. Disgusted, I turned to my centurion.

"Burrus, don't let the men kill them. They must be tried."

"Damned shame, that," the gray old soldier grumbled. "My boy's with the Tenth in Gaul, and these traitors want to stir up trouble there, getting the barbarians to murder Romans in their sleep."

"Nevertheless," I said, "they are citizens and must be tried first."

Burrus brightened. "Well, they ought to make a good public show, anyway, perhaps something with leopards." As we walked to the basilica where arrestees were being kept, the vigiles argued over the best way to put the fire-raisers to death. Every groan of terror from the bearded ones came to my ears as the songs of Orpheus.

But amid all of this exhilaration, there was a darker side. Catilina had joined Manlius in the area of Picenum, and he had gathered a credible military force, mostly Sullan veterans and other discontented soldiers left over from various wars, along with people from the municipia and a surprising number of wellborn young men who left Rome to join him, scenting an opportunity for quick advancement.

Darkest of all were certain events in Rome. I have mentioned the lack of provision for arresting numbers of felons. There was a similar problem when it came to putting highborn men or holders of high office into custody. In the past, when serious perfidy was detected in such a person, he was given opportunity to slink from the city in disgrace and go into exile. This was different. Men who planned the violent overthrow of the state could not be allowed to leave and join their leader. The highest of the conspirators were delivered to the praetors , who kept them under guard in their own homes.

Since Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura was a praetor himself, Cicero personally arrested him and led him by the hand to the Temple of Concord, where he and the other leaders were to be tried. There Cicero argued that the leaders of the insurrection should be put to death immediately. There were some who protested that the Senate had no authority to try citizens, and that this could only be done by a duly constituted court. Cicero argued that the state of emergency forbade this, and that the sooner they were killed, the sooner the rebellion would collapse.

Caesar rose and spoke forcefully against any such course of action. He said that it ill-befitted Roman statesmen to act in the heat of passion. These were excellent sentiments, but they caused word to spread that he was involved with the conspiracy, or was at least a sympathizer. He was threatened by the mob as he left the temple.

Cato, naturally enough, called for execution. That was just the sort of action that appealed to him: simple, brutal and direct. Many men, especially Cato himself, believed that because he led an upright life of virtue and austerity, he must be right. In any case he spoke eloquently, and it may have been his speech that swayed the Senate to its final decision. Before sunset on that day, Lentulus, Cethegus and several others were taken to the prison beneath the Capitol and there were strangled by the public executioner. Richly as they deserved this fate, these executions were not constitutional and when the excitement and hysteria were over, people understood that they had set a fearsome precedent. Then men who had called for the blood of the conspirators called as loudly for Cicero's exile.

Other ugly incidents abounded. Men saw a chance to implicate their enemies, and did so forthwith. Luckily, except for his haste to dispose of the high-ranking conspirators, Cicero stayed calm and disposed of most of these spurious accusations with his withering sarcasm. A man named Tarquinius, captured on his way to join Catilina, claimed that he had been given a message of encouragement by Crassus to deliver to Catilina. Cicero refused to countenance the accusation, although he was happy enough that some doubt was cast upon Crassus's loyalty. In later times, Crassus claimed that Cicero had put Tarquinius up to this accusation, but I never believed it.

Catulus and Piso, bitter enemies of Caesar, tried to bribe the Allobroges and others to implicate Caesar in the conspiracy. Caesar's eloquent speech in protest of the death sentence for the conspirators lent credence to this accusation, but once again Cicero refused to recognize mere word-of-mouth accusations.

Was Caesar involved? He was certainly capable of it, but I do not think that his defense of the conspirators was evidence. Throughout his career, Caesar was happy to kill droves of barbarians, but he was always reluctant to execute citizens. His clemency was a byword, sometimes used in derision by enemies who at first thought him to be softhearted. In the end, it was his undoing. When a later conspiracy ended in his assassination, many of the conspirators were men he had spared when they were within his power and he had good reason to execute them. I do not think that Caesar was especially merciful. It was just his way of showing contempt for his enemies and confidence in his own powers. He was always a vain man.

Various of the magistrates with imperium were directed to deal with the enemy outside of Rome. Complications were added by the fact that it was the end of the year and some magistrates would be stepping down while others would be assuming office. Cicero's brother Quintus, for instance, was a praetor-elect, and he was sent to deal with the Catilinarians in Bruttium. By the time he got there, he would have his full powers. Caius Antonius Hibrida, waiting near Picenum, still had imperium as Consul, and he was alerted to the Catilinarian menace. The Praetor Metellus Celer was to march north with an army. Since Antonius was taking Macedonia, and Cicero had refused proconsular command, Celer had been given Cisalpine Gaul. The campaign would be merely part of his march to his province. The Praetor Pompeius Rufus was sent to Capua, to watch for Catilinarian subversion among the gladiator's schools there. Ever since Spartacus we have been nervous about a rebellion of gladiators, and in those days most of the schools were in Capua. Campania was the home of the gladiatorial cult. Actually, except when discharging their duties in the amphitheater or when hired as bullies for politicians, gladiators are usually the mildest of men. The fear was constant, though.

The Praetor-elect Bibulus was sent to smash the Catilinarians among the Paeligni, which required only a small force of men. The Paeligni had not amounted to much for quite some time, although they made a show of independence up in their mountains.

Much of this, you understand, I heard secondhand or read about later. As a mere quaestor, I was not yet a full member of the Senate, and so I did not hear all these speeches nor take part in the debates. I was kept too busy with my city patrols to do more than catch up on proceedings at the bathhouses frequented by Senators.

Even then, I think, I was half-aware that I was seeing the death throes of the old Republic.